The Wisdom of the Infinite

by
David Quinn

A guide to intellectually comprehending the nature of Reality

Copyright © David Quinn 2003

 Contents

Introduction to Part One 1

1. Cause and Effect 5

2. Entering the Logical Realm 17

3. The Concept of Free Will 30

4. Making Judgments and Abandoning Life 43

5. The Infinite 51

6. Emptiness 61
 Introduction
The biggest obstacle for the serious student seeking to become enlightened is his natural
habit of trying to grasp at Reality as though it were a "thing" of some kind, as though it
were a limited phenomenon separated from himself. He might be aware that he is
unenlightened, it might deeply dissatisfy him and strongly motivate him to want to
rectify the situation. But because he does not yet comprehend the nature of Reality, he is
hampered by his flawed understanding and wrongly interprets Reality to be a realm which
needs to be mentally reached in some way.

He might think of it as a state of mind, for example, which needs to be brought into his
consciousness; or as a hidden essence which has to be uncovered; or as a kind of spiritual
realm which he can open himself up to by breaking out of his web of delusions, much
like a young bird breaking out of its egg. All of these conceptions are fundamentally
deluded because they are rooted in the illusion of duality. They are based in a division of
Nature into two arbitrary realms - that of enlightenment and ignorance, or Reality and
non-Reality - which is itself a creation of ignorance. Such a division automatically traps
one in a dualistic prison and prevents one from realizing the Infinite Reality in which one
is already immersed.

Thus, the first and most crucial step towards becoming enlightened is the perfecting of
one’s intellectual understanding of Reality. I really can't stress this enough. It is
absolutely paramount. Nothing of any real significance can be achieved without it. It is
the basis for all wisdom in the Universe. Without it, there is nothing but blindness and
stupidity.

To the degree that one’s understanding of Reality remains flawed, one will only continue
to chase spiritual phantoms. There is a story in Zen which describes how a madman in
the mountains used to desperately search for the source of piercing sounds that he
regularly heard, not realizing they were echoes caused by his own shrieks. This is exactly
how the deluded spiritual seeker behaves. He creates mirages of enlightenment with his
dualistic thinking and then chases after them, not realizing they are merely illusions of his
own making. It is only by removing the flaws in one’s intellectual thinking that one can
finally lay these illusions and phantoms to rest. Only then can one discern the true nature
of Reality and the fundamental dynamic of the spiritual path.

Although this is primarily an issue for the inner life of each individual involved, it also
has wider consequences for society as a whole. For not only do errors in a person’s
philosophical understanding preserve his own intellect in ignorance, but they flow
through to the rest of his existence, influencing his speech, behaviour, morality and

1
values. They are passed on to other people through the deluded example he sets. He
becomes a beacon of darkness, unwittingly guiding people away from the truth and
leaving them to crash painfully into the rocks and cliffs of unconscious existence. Such is
the way of the world, alas.

Let no one ever hoodwink you with the idea that philosophy is a useless enterprise. In
the end, almost all human misery and violence finds its roots in philosophic ignorance,
and to the degree that we are not wholeheartedly seeking to become enlightened, we are
all contributing to the madness. It is vital that we go to the source and make changes
there. Everything hinges on this. If we do not attempt to fix the source, then we have no
chance of creating a saner world. Instead, we will simply continue on as we have always
done, desperately reacting to the ever-growing madness with ineffectual band-aid
solutions. As an intelligent species, we can surely do better than this.

It is prevalent nowadays for people to believe that enlightenment is a non-rational

experience which has little to do with the intellect. "Give up intellectualizing" is a
common refrain in spiritual circles. But this is a very deluded view. For, in reality,
enlightenment is both experiential and intellectual in nature. These two aspects always go
together. It is impossible for anyone to experience the true nature of Reality without
intellectually comprehending it, and equally, it is impossible to attain a perfect
understanding without having tasted the wonders of direct experience. The two fuse
together in the very same moment. It is only when the last remaining flaws in one’s
intellectual understanding have been eliminated that enlightenment arises. It is only
then, in the very moment that the last fading delusion disappears, that Reality in all its
glory is experienced and one is to finally free to skip and dance like a buddha. It cannot
be experienced in any other way.

You may take it as an axiom, then, that if you are not currently enlightened and
experiencing the nature of Reality directly and consciously, it is because of errors in your
understanding.

For this reason, this book will focus almost exclusively on the intellectual side of things. I
will take the reader through the various logical steps that are needed for the mind to
become aware of the nature of Reality. We will begin with an examination of cause and
effect, which is the universal principle of creation, and then proceed to delve deeper and
deeper until we reach the ultimate foundation of Reality, which is emptiness.

It is important that the reader approach this material in the right frame of mind. The
truths that I will be presenting in the following chapters should not be viewed as final
resting places or fixed positions to grasp tightly with one’s mind or ego. Think of them,
rather, as stepping stones to even greater realizations. Although these truths are
important to know in their own right, one should never lose sight of the main prize,

2
which is the full and complete understanding of Ultimate Reality. Don't ever settle for
meagre crumbs.

The best readers will be those who pore over the material slowly, taking care to absorb
each step of the analysis before moving on. There are no shortcuts to enlightenment. It is
a major process of growth and development, both intellectually and ethically. You
cannot fake it. You cannot hope to fool Nature with some sort of trickery. Just as a tree
has to go through various stages of growth before it can stand proudly above its
surroundings in all its glory, so too the spiritual student needs to develop slowly and
surely before he is ready for the highest wisdom.

The path to enlightenment is essentially one of freeing the mind from its entrenched
deluded perspective and reorientating it so that it aligns itself with the nature of Reality,
thus allowing it to slide effortlessly into enlightenment. The following chapters are
designed to facilitate this reorientation process as much as possible. Each stage of the
analysis is built upon the truths of the previous stage. Each stage is designed to create an
altering of consciousness which then lays the platform for the next one. Thus, through
incremental steps, the diligent reader will undergo a major revolution in his own mind.
By the end of it, he will have abandoned everything that he has ever believed in and
gained a perception of Reality which is fundamental, magnificent and beyond all doubt.

Naturally, a psychological transformation of this scale takes time, as well as a strong

commitment from the reader. Those of you who only want to quickly skim through the
material, or approach it as though it were just another academic thesis, or are simply
looking for some amusement, will get little out of it. A person will never become
enlightened if he confines his philosophizing to a small compartment in his mind and
seals it off from the rest of his life. It is not like science or academia where you think a
few lofty thoughts in your office or laboratory, and then go home to your wife and kids
and revert to being an ordinary person again. The proper practice of philosophy is a full-
time affair which affects every aspect of your existence. If you are not prepared to allow
truth to change you, to alter your perspective, to affect your behaviour in the world, to
challenge your relationships and worldly commitments, then your philosophizing will
always remain ineffectual. Your vision will remain limited by the stagnant state of your
ordinary mediocre consciousness, just as the vision of the ancient astronomers was
limited by the lack of telescopes and Hubble spacecrafts.

This has always been the problem with the traditional Western approach to philosophy
and why it has constantly produced so much garbage. It has always made the mistake of
trying to grasp Ultimate Truth from the perspective of ordinary consciousness, which
simply cannot be done. While you can certainly produce good science from the
perspective of ordinary consciousness, you cannot produce good philosophy. So there
are no two ways about it. The ultimate sacrifice is needed. Ordinary consciousness has to

3
go. Nature demands the whole of your life before she is willing to reveal her innermost
secrets.

Of course, this does not mean that the reader should approach this material in an
unquestioning frame of mind. The last thing I want are uncritical readers who are just
going to accept everything I write as gospel truth. That is certainly no good to me and it
does not help your own cause either. It is important to challenge everything that you read
and hear, whether it be from me or anyone else, with as much energy as you can muster.
If something appears to be true, then challenge it even more! Your own reasoning should
be the final judge in all matters. Only then can you be sure that you are following the
right path.

The practice of philosophy is a very serious business. The very future of your soul is at
stake! It would be foolish to fritter it away through the blind acceptance of another
person’s ideas. Life is too short to waste going down blind alleys. So keep your eyes wide
open, your reason finely poised, your passion for truth alive, and your desire for
perfection undimmed - and you won’t go far wrong.

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 - Chapter One -

Cause and Effect

A leaf detaches from high up in a tree and gently floats to the ground. As you watch it
meander lazily downwards, its path seems random and aimless, as though whim and
fancy were dictating its every move. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. For
when you examine the matter more closely, you begin to see that every aspect of the
leaf's descent is determined by innumerable causes. Whim and fancy never enter the
picture at all.

The structure, mass and aerodynamic properties of the leaf; the height of the tree; the
surrounding air temperature, humidity and pressure; the presence of a breeze; the
strength of the earth's gravity; the friction between the leaf's surface and the air molecules
- all of these elements, and more, combine to determine the leaf’s precise path. There is
not a single aspect of its journey, no matter how insignificant or minute, which is not
fully determined by its causes.

The same is true for the leaf’s prior growth on the branch, and for the tree that originally
grew out of the ground, and for the creation of the ground itself. Indeed, it is true for
everything that happens in the Universe. All phenomena, without exception, are created,
nurtured and destroyed by causation. Everything from the formation of stars and galaxies
to the creation and annihilation of subatomic particles to the endless variety of living
processes is a product of cause and effect. The infinite complexity of Nature that we see
around us is nothing other than the infinite simplicity of causation.

There are no exceptions in this regard, despite what modern physicists say. Nothing is so
unique in this world, or so unnatural, that it dwells outside of Nature's causal web.
Anything that happens in this world is caused to happen, including everything that
happens inside us. The blood coursing through our veins, our muscles expanding and
contracting, the chemical processes inside our cells, the electro-chemical impulses in our
brains - all are causally created. So too our thoughts, beliefs, decisions, and emotions.
Nothing is immune from it.

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Where do we begin and end?

It is often assumed that our skin forms a boundary between what is inside our bodies and
the rest of the Universe. But as far as causation is concerned, it is as though this
boundary does not even exist. The air that we exhale from our lungs easily finds its way
into the cells of trees and plants. Our voice slides effortlessly from our larynx into the
ears of those around us. The heat inside our bodies increases the surrounding air
temperature to a small degree. The viruses in our sneezes create infections in the bodies
of others. The decisions formulating in our brains influence the behaviour of others and
exert ever-widening consequences in society. All of these examples demonstrate the
obvious truth that the boundary between the world and ourselves is non-existent. The
causal processes inside our bodies merge seamlessly with the causal processes in the
outer environment to form one vast sea of causation. In a very real sense, "we" are not
even there.

The same is true for every kind of boundary you care to imagine. None of it is real in the
face of causation. If you want to open your mind to the majesty of the Infinite, then you
need to understand this point thoroughly. Study it as though your life depended upon it -
which, in a deeper sense, it does. Give yourself over to it, absorb your whole
consciousness in it, allow it to permanently alter your mind. It is literally the key to the
Kingdom of Heaven. Don't throw it away!

The Constancy of Nature

With every passing moment of time, the causes and conditions of the previous moment
determine everything that happens in the next. Moreover, these causes and conditions
were themselves produced by the causes and conditions of the moment before that, and
so on back ad infinitum. This is the creative principle of Nature. Sometimes I call it God,
the creator of all things. At other times I call it Tao, the never-ending flow of the
Universe.

Others have called it Brahman, or Reality, or the Infinite. Lao Tzu, in the Tao Te Ching,
called it the "constancy of nature":

The way of nature is unchanging.

Not knowing constancy leads to disaster.

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 Knowing constancy, the mind is open.

With an open mind, you will be openhearted.

Being openhearted, you will act royally.

Being royal, you will attain the divine.

Being divine, you will be at one with the Tao.

Being at one with the Tao is eternal.

And though the body dies, the Tao will never pass away.

People often have a very superficial understanding of causation. They do not perceive its
fundamental nature and fail to discern its significance. They do not see into its soul, as it
were. It is important to keep deepening your understanding of causation until you can
"see" it in utterly everything in the Universe. When you can observe the same
fundamental process at work in all phenomena, without any variation at all, from the
smallest speck of dust to the largest of galaxies, and thus can observe the sheer constancy
behind all change - and when you can perceive the process of causation and the Universe
itself to be absolutely identical in every way - only then will you know that you are staring
into the magnificent timelessness of Nature.

The Fundamentals of Existence

From the ultimate perspective, the physical objects we see around us are like shadows
under the morning sun. Their appearance is fleeting and wholly dependent upon causal
conditions. There is an infinitely fragile quality to their existence, no matter how solid
and permanent they might appear to the senses. A person's life can easily disappear in the
flicker of an eye. The earth can be obliterated in a matter of moments by a large comet.
The sun can be instantly swallowed up by a passing black hole. The cosmos itself could
suddenly vanish by some as-yet-unheard-of cataclysmic event. Nothing is safe. A thing's
existence is always right on the edge. One slip and it is gone.

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Consider an eddy which appears in a flowing stream for a few fleeting moments before
disappearing again. On the face of it, the eddy seems to have an independent existence
separate from the rest of the stream, so much so that we are able to label it with the word
"eddy". Yet it is easy to see that it does not really exist. It is simply a portion of the
stream spinning around in a temporary, localized fashion. No aspect of its existence can
be divorced from the stream in any way. Its appearance as an independent entity is
essentially an illusion. In the end, there is no eddy. There is only the stream.

This is how it is with all things. An object has no real existence and identity of its own.
These are qualities given to it by the rest of Nature. Things exist by virtue of the fact that
Nature makes "room" for them. For example, if Nature dictates there is no room for a
particular tree in a particular location, then the tree in question simply won't arise. Or if
Nature dictates that the tree should have a certain kind of shape, or possess a particular
kind of genetic deformity, or be located on a barren patch of land where it will struggle
for subsistence, then that is what the tree will do. It has no say in the matter.

In short, a thing is like a "negative image" of the rest of the Universe. It is everything that
the rest of the Universe is not. Logically speaking, the two arise and vanish together.
Never can the one exist without the other.

Shadows

In order to get a better handle on this matter, it can sometimes be useful to study the
nature of shadows. It is easy to see that a shadow has no say over any aspect of its
existence or behaviour. It is entirely the product of external factors: the object casting the
shadow, the topography of the ground, the refractive properties of the atmosphere, the
existence of the sun, and so on. Viewed in this way, a shadow is like a puppet and all
these other factors are the string-pullers. They say to the shadow, "Assume a long thin
shape!" and the shadow automatically assumes a long thin shape. They say, "Become
small and round!" and the shadow immediately obeys without question. They say,
"Disappear!" and it immediately vanishes as though it never were.

Everything is like this - including ourselves. In the end, we have no more "will" than a
shadow does. We are all mindless puppets on the string of causation. Our every thought
and decision arises with the same relentless inevitability as the shadow being cast on the
ground. If the conditions are ripe for a particular thought to arise, then it will arise -
without any hesitation at all. And if the conditions are ripe for the thought to recede or
be pushed away from the mind before it can be fully formed, then it will recede or be
pushed away - again, without any hesitation. Indeed, everything in the Universe happens
without hesitation. Even hesitations themselves happen without hesitation.

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It should be noted that my analogy of the shadow here has no connection to Plato’s
shadow analogy. Plato attempted to demonstrate that the things in this world are the
reflections of things existing in another hidden Reality. He thought that physical objects
were pale imitations or approximations of perfect forms that existed in a perfect realm.
This is false thinking, however. There is no hidden Reality behind this world. There is no
realm of perfect forms. The things we see around us are the things themselves. They are
not mere imitations or reflections of other things. They are the real deal. And yet, at the
same time, their existence is causal in nature and essentially an illusion.

Observe a fountain constantly pumping water up into the air. With every passing
moment, new and varied water shapes are constantly being created by the fountain, each
of them original and unique, never to be repeated again in the future. These shapes are
exactly what they are - creations in the moment by the forces of causation. They have no
parallel in some kind of hidden metaphysical reality. There is no such thing as a "perfect"
water shape, against which the observable shapes in the fountain are mere imitations. On
the contrary, each shape in the fountain is perfectly formed in its own right, just as the
flaws in a leaf caused by bacterial disease, or a faulty genetic process, are perfectly formed
in their own right.

The Endless Variety of Causal Processes

When I speak of causation, I am not really referring to the old 19th century materialistic
view which imagines that causation is nothing more than a series of billiard ball-type
interactions. Rather, I am referring to something broader and deeper. Billiard ball-type
interactions are certainly part of the realm of causation, but not the extent of it. How can
one speak of billiard balls when one is dealing with the purely abstract realm of the
imagination, for example? Or the process of logical thought? It is important to broaden
one’s conception of causation until it includes all phenomena in the Universe. Otherwise,
one will continue to create arbitrary realms of non-causation, which can only lead to
unnecessary confusion.

It all depends on what is meant by "billiard ball-type causation", of course. If it refers to

every kind of physical interaction in the Universe, then yes, everything is a product of
billiard ball-type causation. Thought, for example, is a product of physical interactions in
the brain and therefore can be placed within a broad enough definition of billiard-ball
causation. It does not really matter how you choose to categorize these things as long as
you know what you are doing. Problems only arise when people start unconsciously
narrowing the scope of causation to those processes which are obviously mechanical,
linear and billiard ball-like in nature. They then scratch their heads and wonder what to
do with a phenomenon such as thought, or love, or religious experiences, or complex

9
non-linear processes - only to proclaim them as inherently mysterious and incapable of
explanation, not realizing that it was they who falsely created the mystery by arbitrarily
moving them outside the realm of causation.

Again, the important point is that one needs to broaden one’s conception of causation so
that it necessarily includes everything that could possibly exist. If that means abandoning
narrower conceptions of causation, then so be it. In the end, the affirmation of the
principle of causation only requires one thing from us - namely, the recognition that
nothing can arise without any cause whatsoever. That is all that is needed. It does not
require us to affirm or reject particular models of causation. It does not require us to
reject non-linear dynamics or quantum phenomena or mystical experiences from the
causal realm. All of these things involve causation in one form or another. While it is true
that it is almost impossible to describe the behaviour of these complex phenomena with
the old classical models of causation inherited from 19th century physics, it doesn’t really
mean anything. All it means is that those particular models are limited in their scope. It
does not change the fact that these phenomena, like all phenomena in the Universe,
always follow the age-old process of things being generated by causal conditions.

In the end, causation can have an infinite number of forms. There are no rules for it to
abide by. How it is expressed in any given moment depends entirely on what happens to
exist in that moment. If billiard balls exist, then causation will be expressed in a classical,
billiard ball-like fashion. If a quantum void exists, then causation will be expressed in the
usual quantum fashion. But no matter how it is expressed, there is always a common
element which runs through them all - namely, that nothing can arise without cause.

Transcending God

Part of the exhilaration of comprehending the nature of cause and effect is recognizing
that it is necessarily the most fundamental process in the Universe. Logically, it underpins
all other processes, whether they be materialistic or abstract in nature. It is impossible
for anything to be more fundamental than it. It literally forms the bedrock of Reality.

Take the concept of God, for example. Religious people often use the concept of "God"
to explain the existence of the Universe. They say that God is the creator or sustainer of
all reality. But even if, for the sake of argument, we assume this to be true, it still does not
get to the very core of the matter. For it overlooks the fact that the relationship between
this God and the Universe would necessarily be causal in nature. After all, if the principle
of cause and effect did not exist to begin with, then not even Almighty God himself
could be the cause of the Universe. He would be utterly powerless and not much of a
God, to say the least! This alone demonstrates that the principle of cause and effect is
more fundamental than God.

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To the degree that one conceives of a creator God which is separate and distinct from
the world, my point will always be true. Even if we choose to conceive of God in a more
mystical or philosophical manner - e.g. as the eternal substratum underlying an eternal
Universe, or as a Primal Force, or as a Cosmic Intelligence - the relationship between it
and the world will always be causal in nature. Again, if this wasn’t the case, then such a
God would be powerless to create or sustain anything.

Also note that the distinction which is often proclaimed to exist between God and the
Universe disappears when viewed from the perspective of cause and effect. As
mentioned previously, the process of cause and effect pays no attention to the existence
of boundaries between things, just as the wind pays no attention to the boundaries
between nations. In the same way that the causal processes within our body are blissfully
unaware of the distinction that we like to make between our hand and our arm, or
between our head and neck, so too is causation ignorant of any distinctions we care to
make between the Universe and "God".

So even in the unlikely event that the Christian God actually existed (as a separate being
who created the world), he would still be in the same boat as everything else when it
comes to cause and effect. He too would be composed of internal causal processes which
merge seamlessly into the rest of the causal Universe. The blowtorch of causation
disintegrates both God and the world into countless processes which unfold endlessly.
Everything breaks apart and disappears in this way. Nothing can withstand the heat of
causation, not even God. It reigns supreme in the Universe. Everything else is just an
afterthought, an accidental by-product.

The Theory of Everything

The principle of cause and effect also lies at the heart of all scientific theories. It is easy to
see that, without the principle of cause and effect, the laws of Nature would be utterly
useless - either as regulators of phenomena, or as descriptive models of empirical order.
Even statistical-based theories which do not have to assume causation for their
functioning, but merely map regularities of behaviour in large populations, are ultimately
dependent upon the existence of causation. For without causation, there can be no
regularities. Thus, as far as the ultimate explanation of all things is concerned, the
principle of cause and effect will always be more fundamental than any scientific or
mathematical theory could ever be. It is the root law upon which all other laws are built.

In light of this, the search for the scientific "Theory of Everything" is, philosophically
speaking, a complete waste of time. We already know the ultimate explanation of all things
- namely, you guessed it, cause and effect. Any other explanation is superfluous.

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Searching for the scientific theory of everything is a bit like a scientist in a dream
whipping out his dream microscope in an effort to discover the ultimate substance of his
dream universe. It simply cannot be done, at least not in that manner. For whatever
fundamental substance or mathematical equation he happens to discover will always be
nothing more than an illusory creation of the dream world.

In a similar vein, the physicist who searches for the Theory of Everything without first
philosophically comprehending the nature of causation will only ever discover superficial
forms of causation (e.g. scientific laws), and not the core principle itself. It does not
matter how deeply he probes the universe with his microscope or his mathematical tools,
he will not advance a single inch towards the ultimate goal. You can rearrange a pile of
building blocks into any form you want, but it still won’t help you to understand what an
actual building block is. A change of tack is needed.

The Furtherest Galaxy

If boundaries are fundamentally non-existent and all things are causally connected, it may
be asked, then isn't it the case that we are connected to all things in the Universe, even to
the furtherest galaxy in the universe? Yet how can this be when we clearly have no
influence over the galaxy’s behaviour? Surely, for all intents and purposes, we are utterly
disconnected from it.

Apart from anything else, the main problem with this point of view is that it lacks
imagination. In truth, we are constantly having a say over the behaviour of the furtherest
galaxy, even at this very moment. For example, we are not, at this very moment, suddenly
transforming ourselves into giant space-goats and dashing off faster than the speed of
light in order to gobble the galaxy up. The very fact that we are not doing this allows the
galaxy to continue existing. That is a pretty large influence in anyone’s book!

Although this example might seem bizarre on the surface, it does illustrate a serious point
- namely, that things are always in a state of causal connection with every other thing in
the Universe. A distant galaxy is only able to continue existing to the degree that other
objects in the Universe, including myself, are prevented from transforming into a force
capable of destroying it. It does not really matter that I will probably never change into
such a force. All this means is that the causal circumstances will probably never be ripe
for me to undergo such a transformation - which, in turn, only supports my case that the
causal conditions underpinning the existence of the galaxy are dependent, to some degree
at least, on the causal conditions underpinning my own existence.

The sheer fact that an object may be too powerless to influence the behaviour of another
object is not sufficient grounds to conclude that the two objects are causally

12
disconnected. Consider a large tree, for example, which has two small leaves on either
side of its massive canopy. Under normal circumstances, each leaf seems to have no
influence upon the other, and yet it is obviously the case that the leaves are connected to
each other via the rest of the tree. And indeed, it is precisely because of this connection
that the leaves do have the potential to influence one another. For example, a bacterial
disease contracted by one of the leaves can spread throughout the tree and kill the other
leaf.

In the end, we are always physically connected to all things, even if it is just purely
through the medium of space. People often make the assumption that the interface
between the surface of their skins and the surrounding space signals an abrupt boundary
of separation. They think that some sort of unbridgeable chasm exists there. Yet it is just
as easy, and just as valid, to conceive of the body being joined to space. It is only habit of
thought which pictures it the other way. Thankfully, such habits are easy to break.

The Eternal Nature of Cause and Effect

If cause and effect is all there is, then where did cause and effect itself come from? Why
is there cause and effect in the first place? Who or what created it?

This seem like reasonable questions to ask at this point. Having reduced everything down
to a single principle, it is only natural to ask where this principle came from. Nonetheless,
they are deluded questions and fundamentally unaskable. They are generated out of a
false conception of causation, one that imagines it to be a finite phenomenon with a
beginning and an end of some kind. Instead of discerning that cause and effect refers to
the very process of creation itself, the deluded person falsely conceives of it as a created
entity of some kind and unconsciously places it in the same category as trees, mountains,
galaxies, humans, and every other created entity in the Universe. Causation, however, is
not like this. Although it is responsible for everything which exists, it itself transcends
existence and hence the question of who or what created it is a meaningless one.

From a logical point of view, it is easy to see that the process of cause and effect is
necessarily causeless. This is because anything which can be postulated as being the
cause of cause and effect will automatically be a part of cause and effect itself. It is thus
irrational to think of cause and effect as being causally created in any way. It has always
been around. There has never been a time when it was absent.

Note that I am not saying I don’t know where cause and effect came from. It is not an
admission of ignorance on my part. The possibility of ignorance does not come into it,
for there is nothing to know as far as this matter is concerned. The question cannot yield
an answer because it has no foundations to begin with. It overlooks the fact that it is

13
impossible for the process of cause and effect to come from somewhere because the very
act of "coming from somewhere" will always be causal in nature.

A far more pertinent question, perhaps, is the question of why there is a process of
causation in the first place and not nothing at all. In other words, why is there
"something" rather than nothing? This is an important question to resolve because it
goes to the very heart of understanding Reality itself.

In answering this, I must point again to the fact that the process of cause and effect is
not a created thing, but the very principle behind all created things. This needs some
qualification, however. Even though I use the word "principle", it should not be taken to
mean that causation is a physical principle of some kind, or even a spiritual one. In fact,
in a certain sense, it does not really exist at all. It isn’t a manifested entity which exists
above or behind the realm of created things. In the end, created things are all that exists
- there is nothing else apart from them, nothing beyond them.

The "principle of causation", then, is merely a figure of speech. It is a description of how

created things change into other created things. It is a conceptual construct which points
to the fact that objects arise out of what is already there in the world. It asserts that a
thing is created out of necessity from the circumstances which are present and that it is
impossible for anything else to be created in its place. It also points to the truth that
things have no beginning or end, and thus points to the essential "oneness" of Reality.

Given this, the question of why there is causation rather than nothing at all is a
meaningless one. Even the state of nothingness is itself a created thing, a product of
causation. It can only occur in a region where things are entirely absent - that is, when the
causal circumstances are ripe. Moreover, when one analyses it further, one finds that it is
nothing more than a mental construct. Nothingness only comes into being when
consciousness conceives of it - or more accurately, when consciousness conceives of
things being absent. As such, a state of total nothingness, in which nothing exists at all, is
logically impossible. At the very least, it would need the existence of consciousness to
think it into being.

To sum up, then, the principle of causation which is responsible for the existence of all
created things, including states of nothingness, itself never comes into existence and
therefore is incapable of experiencing birth and death. If it was possible for it to
experience birth, it would immediately cease being the core principle of creation and
instead be just another created thing. Because it never experiences birth, it is timeless and
beyond all explanation.

In the end, no matter where we look, we are literally staring into the very first moment of
creation. Beginningless time and the present moment are the same. There is no "before".

14
The Will to Unconsciousness

It is sometimes said to me, "It all sounds too simple and convenient for my liking. If
cause and effect is the ultimate answer to everything, then why doesn't everybody
subscribe to it? Why isn't it taught in schools? Why aren't the great thinkers preaching it?
Why have I never heard about it before?"

These are good questions. I think it is mainly because people are afraid of it. Deep down,
most people do have an inkling of the significance of cause and effect - it is hard not to
since it literally pervades everything they do - but they are loathe to bring it more fully
into their consciousness and investigate it seriously. They intuitively realize that a serious
interest in cause and effect would almost invariably destroy life as they know it. It would
undermine everything they enjoy and believe in. And so, on a subconscious level, they
have set up large mental blocks to fortify their minds against it.

It is quite a fascinating phenomenon when you reflect upon it. After all, it must be
obvious to anyone with an ounce of intelligence that cause and effect is fundamentally
important to our understanding of the world. Not only must it necessarily form the
kernel of any theory we care to create about the world, but it is plainly visible in every
aspect of our daily lives. It is the ultimate explanation of all things, the final fruition of
wielding Ockham's razor to the fullest extent, the Theory of Everything boiled down to
its purest essence. I mean, what a prize! Surely, you would think, such an obvious all-
pervasive principle would present an exciting avenue of investigation for anyone even
remotely interested in philosophy and spirituality. And yet, amazingly, it is universally
ignored the world over. No one ever talks about it or thinks about it. This alone should
set the alarm bells ringing. Something is seriously amiss here.

But then again, as I say, it is entirely understandable that people want to avoid all
consciousness of cause and effect. Becoming conscious of it is dangerous. The more you
absorb it into your being, the more it dissolves the basis of your egotistical existence and
undermines the egotistical values of love, family, happiness, community, religion,
suffering and hate. It flings you into the austere, starry realm of the Infinite - a realm
from which most of humanity shrinks.

If a person recognized and accepted that everything which happens in the world is
caused to happen, including his own thoughts and actions, then how could he continue
to believe in his own free-will? How could he take pride in his achievements when he
succeeds, or indulge in the pleasures of self-pity when he fails? How could he believe in
the idea of gain and loss, and experience the ups and downs of normal emotional life
which most people find so appealing? How could he take pleasure in what other people

15
achieve, or experience the joys of anger and violence against those who seem to mistreat
him? How could he indulge in any kind of life at all?

Thus, it should come as no surprise that most people intuitively regard the philosophic
life as a kind of living death. Involving oneself with cause and effect pulls the rug out
from under everything that the human race finds meaningful. There is no longer any
basis for getting involved in a relationship, or experiencing satisfaction from a successful
career, or finding pleasure in the triumphs of sport and hobbies. Even to become
involved in these things in the first place is to fall into the delusion that things really exist.
The concept of cause and effect is like a virus that takes over the philosopher's mind,
destroying all of his human values and rendering him unfeeling, sterile and inhuman.

So, in the end, this is the core reason why cause and effect is never discussed or thought
about in the world today. Everyone wants to keep it hidden, out of mind and out of
sight, so that nobody has to deal with it. Everyone adheres to the unspoken principle that
the very basis for enjoying life needs to be preserved at all costs and that the
conventional mental shutters need to be vigilantly maintained. Even scientific and
academic pursuit can be seen as a process of intelligent people doing everything they can
to avoid exploring the obvious truth of causation. They are intelligent enough to
understand the concept and discern its significance, but far too timid to deal with it
directly. Like little children, they need to be constantly distracted, otherwise they might
start to fall apart.

It is at this point that we can finally begin to understand the spiritual concept of faith.
The genuine faith of a spiritual man has nothing to do with blindly clinging to an
unprovable belief, as the Christians would have it. On the contrary, it involves pursuing
to the end what you know to be ultimately true in life, even though such a pursuit
effectively means the forfeiting of your life. As Soren Kierkegaard so eloquently
expressed it, "To have faith is really to advance along the way where all the human road
signs point: back, back, back."

Or as Jesus liked to put it: "Blessed is he who is not offended!"

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 - Chapter Two -

Entering the Logical Realm

"Some people try to peep at the heavens through a tube, or aim at the earth with an awl.
These implements are too small for the purpose. You will find many like this."

- Chuang Tzu

One of the great myths of our time is the belief that David Hume, the 18th century
Scottish philosopher, undermined the concept of cause and effect, or at least undermined
our ability to establish with certainty that things are caused. Hume argued that it is
impossible for the mind and senses to directly perceive causal links between the things
we observe in the world, that there will always be "gaps" in our perception, as it were.
Moreover, since we can never know what lies beyond our field of perception, we can
never be sure of what influences this unknown realm has on the observable world, if any.

When we observe a match being struck to produce fire, for example, we cannot be
certain that the striking of the match was the actual cause of the fire. Our minds merely
observe a succession of events - first, the match being struck and, second, the flame
erupting into being - and it is only through our past experiences of watching a similar
succession of events that enables us to assume the two are causally linked. But we can
never be sure that this assumption is valid. The fire might well have been produced by
something else entirely, by an event or force that our minds, for whatever reason, are
unable to observe. It could be that hidden space aliens orbiting the earth produced the
fire, to use an extreme example. Who knows? And even if we were able to observe the
aliens producing this fire, we would have no way of knowing whether this was really
happening either. Perhaps there are yet further hidden factors involved?

Obviously, this could go on forever. Even if we were to spend the rest of eternity
investigating the world in increasingly smaller detail, we would still not be able to bridge
the apparent gaps in causality. We would still be no closer to establishing direct causal
linkages between anything at all.

This inability to bridge the gap between objects is partly a result of the perceptual process
itself. Perception always involves the perception of "things", and things by their nature

17
always present an appearance of being separate to some degree from the rest of the
world, simply by virtue of their being distinguishable. Hume's argument also takes
advantage of the fact that empirical knowledge and observation is always uncertain.
Because our brains and senses are limited in their ability to observe what is in the world,
we will never be able to have access to the full picture. We will always be in a state of
ignorance to some degree. As such, we can never be certain that the causal processes that
we do observe in the world are in fact what they appear to be.

Now, I do not dispute this reasoning from Hume. It is undeniable that our brains and
senses are limited and that all of our empirical theorizing, which ultimately rests on what
we perceive through our senses, is inherently incomplete and uncertain. However, where
I begin to diverge from Hume, and from modern thinking in general, is the idea that it is
inherently impossible for us to establish with certainty that all things are caused. Granted,
we will never be able to uncover the precise causal linkages between things in an
empirical sense, but nevertheless, what we can do is logically prove that causality is a reality
which links all things together. We can do this by proving that it is logically impossible
for anything to arise uncaused.

Cause and effect, as a universal law, can be proven to be true in the same way that
1+1=2 and A=A can be proven to be true. Namely, by thinking about it and discerning
the logic which underpins it. It is something that is true by definition, which makes it a
purely logical truth rather than an empirical theory. The reason why it is not an empirical
theory, even though it necessarily applies to everything within the empirical universe, is
because it is impossible to accumulate any empirical evidence which could either prove or
disprove it. It is utterly beyond the capacity of empirical investigation to resolve. Instead,
it is a conclusion which can only be proven by logic alone.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we do observe what seems to be an uncaused
event - for example, a strange object mysteriously popping into existence out of thin air.
We have no way of empirically demonstrating that it did not have causes. This relates
back to Hume’s point about the inherent limitations of our brains and senses. Perhaps
the strange object did have causes and we were simply not able to discern them?

Similarly, if we observe a random and unpredictable series of events - for example, many
strange objects mysteriously popping into existence without any rhyme or reason. It still
would not constitute evidence that non-causality was in action. This is because causality
is also perfectly capable of producing random, unpredictable events - e.g. the stock
market, the weather, the lottery draw, and so on.

In the end, there is nothing we can point to in the world as evidence of non-causality.
Since the behaviour of anything which appears to be uncaused can just as easily be
produced by causal processes, it is impossible for us to distinguish between the two. We
have no means of isolating pure causal processes from non-causal ones, or vice versa,

18
and thus we have no means of observing their differing effects. As such, the issue of
causality vs. non-causality is wholly beyond the powers of science to investigate and
resolve. It is purely a philosophical issue and resolvable by logic alone.

I realize that in this day and age the concept of "pure logical truth" is regarded with
suspicion and usually placed in the same basket as religious belief. We are all brainwashed
with the view that scientific knowledge is the only valid knowledge there is, and it is
evident that most people cannot think beyond this. Most people happily submit to the
conventional view that if an assertion or a theory about the world cannot be tested
scientifically, then it automatically becomes an article of faith. As such, they no longer
possess the skill to distinguish between those beliefs which cannot be proven by any
means at all, such as the Christian conception of God, and those which can indeed be
proven by the use of deductive logic, such as the principle of causality. In other words,
their scientific conditioning has induced a form of blindness.

Or else, if they do make this distinction, such as in the case of abstract mathematical
truths, they reject the possibility that a purely logical truth can tell us something
meaningful about the empirical world. According to this line of thought, all logical truths
are of the "all bachelors are unmarried" variety - that is, logically consistent in an internal
sense, but empirically meaningless. I have lost count of the number of times people have
said to me that "we cannot pull ourselves up with our bootstraps" - meaning, again, that
without empirical input in the initial premises, a train of reasoning cannot tell us anything
new about the empirical world. But as I illustrate below, and throughout this book, such
thinking is limited and lacks imagination

While it may be the case that many logical truths are empirically meaningless - for
example, some forms of pure mathematics - it is certainly not true for all of them. There
is a particular class of logical truth, specifically in the realm of philosophy, which is very
meaningful as far as the empirical world is concerned, and yet whose validity is solely
garnered by the sheer logic underpinning them and not on any empirical evidence.
Although these logical truths do not, and cannot, conflict with what is observed
empirically, neither do they rely on any particular pieces of empirical evidence for their
support. They are transcendent truths, as it were. They are necessarily true in all possible
worlds (and therefore necessarily true in the empirical world that we perceive through
our senses) and cannot be falsified in any manner.

A simple example that anyone can understand is the truth that all things in the Universe
are finite. By finite, I specifically mean "falling short of constituting the totality of all
there is". In other words, a finite thing has a beginning and an end; it doesn’t extend
indefinitely to include everything there is. Since there is only one Totality by definition, it
follows that everything within the Totality falls short of constituting the totality of all
there is. That is to say, all things (within the Totality) are finite.

19
Note that this is a conclusion which cannot be tested empirically. You cannot devise a
scientific experiment to test whether a single thing is finite, let alone a test for all things in
the Universe. It is utterly beyond the scope of science to deal with. Yet the sheer logic
underpinning it dictates that it is 100% true and necessarily applicable to everything in
existence.

This is a very important issue and I will be addressing it in more detail later in the book.
If a person cannot enter the logical realm and perceive the sheer omniscience of
philosophical truth, then he has no chances at all of becoming enlightened. He will
remain just another short-sighted gnat stuck within the empirical mindset. Logic is the
means by which we can break out of the myopia of empiricism and gain access to
universal and ultimate knowledge. It is like boarding a highly advanced spacecraft, one
that is capable of travelling to all times and places in the Universe in a single instant. We
can use this spacecraft to test various logical assertions, such as "all things are finite" or
"all things are caused", and receive confirmation of their universal validity within
seconds. It is a truly marvellous tool.

The Logical Proof of Cause and Effect

There are two ways of proving that things cannot arise without cause. The first involves
recognizing that a thing cannot exist without its constituent parts, while the second
involves recognizing that a thing cannot exist in the absence of an external reality.
Although these two proofs may seem isolated on the surface, in reality they are both
expressions of the one core proof - namely, that a thing cannot arise in the absence of
other things.

It is easy to see that an object cannot exist without its constituent parts. A car, for
example, cannot exist without the engine, wheels, doors and windows which comprise it.
Eliminate these things and the car automatically disappears. Moreover, the existence of
the car is dependent not only on these parts existing, but on their being fitted together in
the correct manner. Or to state this in more general terms, a car only comes into
existence when the causal circumstances are ripe.

The same reasoning can be applied to anything else in existence. If a thing exists, it will
necessarily be comprised of parts. It is an inherent fact of existence. Even if a thing does
not seem to have easily recognizable physical parts, such as a smooth sphere or a portion
of empty space, it can nevertheless be divided up conceptually into parts. We can
mentally carve a smooth sphere into two imaginary halves and conclude that the sphere
cannot exist without the existence of these two halves.

20
It should be pointed out that the parts which constitute an object are not the object itself.
The engine inside a car is not the car, nor are its wheels, doors and windows. Although
they are part of the car, they are nevertheless objects which are distinct from it. Thus, the
truth that a thing cannot exist without its parts is really an expression of the more general
truth that a thing is necessarily dependent upon other things for its existence.

Objects are not only dependent on internal factors, but they rely on external ones as well,
which now leads us to the second proof. Without the presence of an external reality, it is
equally impossible for an object to exist. By way of analogy, consider the image of a black
bird painted on a white canvas. It is only because of the contrast between the black and
white colours that the painted bird is able to exist at all. If the canvas was exactly the
same shade of black as the bird, the bird would simply merge into the rest of the canvas
and disappear without trace.

It might be pedantically argued that a painted bird of the same colour as the rest of the
canvass could still be distinguishable by virtue of, say, the different thickness of the paint
used on the bird, or by the use of a different brush technique, or whatever. While this is
certainly true it would only support my essential point, which is that things can only exist
via contrasts. It does not matter what kind of objects or contrasts we care to focus upon,
the basic truth is unchanged: without the presence of contrasts nothing can exist at all.

Imagine a tree existing on a plain. Now mentally take away everything that is not the tree
- the plain, the distant mountains, the sky, the grass, and so on. Keep on doing this until
there is nothing left except the tree existing in a void. Now take away the void. Do you
think the tree can still continue to exist in such a situation? Logically, it cannot. Its very
being as a tree, its features, its structure and shape, is as much dependent upon the
existence of the void, or whatever happens to be surrounding the tree, as it upon its own
constituent parts.

Existence is always dualistic in nature. Just as "up" can only exist in relation to "down",
and "big" in relation to "small", so too an existing object can only exist in relation to
what is not that object. In more formal language, "A" (which stands for any object or
event in the Universe) is always dependent upon "not-A", and vice versa.

To sum up, then, a thing cannot exist in the absence of other things existing both inside
and outside of it. When these internal and external things are causally arranged in the
appropriate manner, the thing in question comes into existence. But what exactly does
come into existence in that moment? In the final analysis, nothing. Not a single sliver of
anything extra. If anything does seem to arise in that moment, it is purely a conceptual
projection on our parts.

To use the above example again, a car only comes into being when its parts are
assembled correctly. Before then, there is no car at all. Only when the final component is

21
put into place does the car suddenly emerge. Nothing substantial is added in the process,
only a rearrangement of what is already there. What we call the car, then, is simply a
conceptual creation that we project onto a particular arrangement of components. It is an
abstraction that ultimately has no physical referent.

We are essentially no different, of course. Our existence as an independent and

substantial entity is also an illusion. We are nothing more than a conceptual construct
which is projected onto a conglomeration of parts. We are like the fist that vanishes as
soon as the hand is opened.

Physical Creation

It might be argued that the logical proof of causality described above does not really
address the question of physical creation. While people might agree with me that it is
impossible for a thing to exist in its own right, as it is always dependent upon its parts
and upon what is external to it, there seems to be nothing in my argument which
discounts the possibility of it popping into existence uncaused. Sure, the argument might
continue, once a thing is already in existence, then it is necessarily reliant on other things,
but what about in the moment of its creation? Can it be logically proven that it is always
causally created?

To answer this, let us assume for the sake of argument that a particular thing, such as a
positron-electron pairing, just pops into existence out of nothing whatsoever. Initially,
there is an empty void, and then suddenly, there it is: a brand new pairing. Now imagine
the existence of a hypothetical force which is powerful enough to prevent the pairing
from arising. It is easy to see that if such a force were to exist in a particular location,
then no pairings would be able to arise in that location. The natural impulse of the
Universe to spontaneously produce a pairing would be negated by the existence of the
force. The creation of the pairing necessarily depends on this force not being there at the
moment of its creation.

It does not really matter if such a force actually exists or not. Just the fact that we can
imagine its existence is enough to validate the argument. It proves that quantum particle
pairings are indeed dependent upon the right causal conditions for their arisal, the same
as anything else in the Universe.

The pairing is also dependent upon the Universe possessing a natural tendency to
spontaneously produce them in the first place. If the Universe was set up in a different
way, or if it did not exist at all, then it would be impossible for the pairing to arise.
Similarly, if there was no space or time or quarks, or if there was no Big Bang to begin
with. All of these things count as contributory causes of quantum pairings. It is clear,

22
then, that the idea of things being able to pop into existence without any cause
whatsoever is absurd. It simply cannot occur.

It might be argued that things like space and time, and the Universe itself, should be
classified as "background conditions" of the quantum pairing, rather than its causes.
While they are certainly necessary to the pairing’s existence, the argument might
continue, they do not constitute a sufficient cause of it. The sheer fact of their existence
does not directly lead to the pairing’s existence. They merely lay the platform for its
possible arisal.

The problem with this argument is that it is ultimately impossible to distinguish between
a "background condition" and a "cause". All causes are merely "background conditions"
in the end. It is impossible for any one thing to cause another thing into existence all by
itself. It always needs the help of countless other causes (or "background conditions") to
do its creative work. It is powerless all alone.

Consider the birth of a human being, for example. Under the schema provided above,
the parents would constitute the main "cause" of the child, while space would merely be
a "background condition". The latter would be relegated to its lowly status because,
although it is necessary for the child’s existence, it lacks the power to bring the child into
being on its own. The trouble is, the same reasoning can equally be applied to the
parents. The parents too lack the power to bring a child into existence on their own.
Without the help of other things, such as food, air, molecules, atoms, genes, womb, time,
and yes, space, the parents would not be able to create a thing. So they are no different to
space in this regard. They too constitute nothing more than a "background condition" as
far as the child is concerned. In the final analysis, the child is a product of countless
background conditions, of which the parents only play a very small part.

We can see, then, that the millions of causes which contribute to the creation of an
object are really just background conditions, each playing a small contributory role, none
of them standing out as having any greater importance than the rest. It is only our
imaginations which zero in on one or two of these background conditions and blow
them up to gigantic proportions, thereby dwarfing the rest.

It is in our practical interests to do this, of course. It is usually more practical for us to

think of the parents as being the main cause of the child, even though from the ultimate
perspective they are no more the main cause than space or time or carbon-based
molecules are. It is more practical because we potentially have a far greater influence over
the existence of the parents than we do of space or time. Parents are much more fragile
and fleeting, whereas space seems stable and constant. Parents easily go in and out of
existence, which influences the probabilities that a child will be created.

23
I use the word "probabilities" because the very occurrence of two people becoming
parents in and of itself does not guarantee the birth of a child, for the child might die as a
foetus or as a conceptus. All it does is increase the probabilities that a child will be born.
Being aware of these kinds of probabilities is of practical benefit to us, even though it can
easily distort our picture of the Universe if we are not careful.

If an ecologist was asked to list the main causes of a tree, he would naturally focus upon
those causes which are of more interest to him as a biologist - seed, genetic material,
water, fertile soil, sunlight, carbon and nitrogen cycles, and so on. It probably wouldn’t
occur to him list the causes which fall outside of this realm - e.g. time, space, subatomic
particles, gravity, the formation of the earth, the Big Bang and so on - even though these
causes are just as important to the tree’s existence as those in his main list. The ecologist
is operating from a purely practical standpoint, rather than from the standpoint of
Ultimate Truth.

In a similar vein, the scientific assertion that subatomic particles arise without cause is
one made from a practical standpoint, rather than from the ultimate one. Physicists assert
it because they cannot yet find causes (or "background conditions") for the particle that
fall within their area of interest. In narrowly focusing their attention upon those kinds of
causes, they tend to ignore the array of causes which fall outside of this arbitrarily defined
realm, such as the existence of space and time and the Universe itself. The reader needs
to be aware of this dynamic whenever he hears or reads a scientist making a
philosophical pronouncement, not just in connection to quantum physics, but to any
aspect of life. The sheer fact that it will be generated out of a scientific perspective almost
guarantees that it will have nothing to do with what is ultimately true in life.

God Does Not Play Dice

Another example of philosophical clumsiness on the part of scientists concerns the

successful manner in which quantum theory can make predictions within the subatomic
realm. Quantum physicists often point to the very strength of quantum mechanics as a
scientific theory as proof that non-causality is a reality. They refer to the theory’s
consistent ability to make accurate predictions of quantum phenomena (albeit
ambiguously or statistically) and its major role in the development of modern technology,
such as televisions, computers, laser technology, and so on. They say that non-causality
must be real because quantum mechanics is a well-established theory which has been
tested countless times and has never yet failed.

This is a very funny argument when you think about it. I’m not sure that the scientists
who preach it discern the hidden irony in it. Predicting anything at all is only possible if
the thing being predicted either has discernable causes (which enable us to form a

24
prediction) or displays repeated behaviour which we have experienced in the past (which
also indicates the presence of causes). Either way, the very fact that quantum theory is
able to predict the behaviour of particles (however ambiguously or statistically) only
serves to disprove the idea that these particles are uncaused. But in their blindness,
scientists think it does the opposite.

One of the fascinating things about the quantum realm, apart from its well-documented
weirdness, is the fact that we only ever observe the same handful of particles arising. It is
always the same old electrons, positrons, neutrinos, bosons, quarks, etc, that we see. We
are not seeing an endless variety of phenomena, which is what we would expect if they
really were uncaused. Not only that, but each species of particle consistently displays the
exact same characteristics and attributes, with seemingly no deviation at all. Electrons, for
example, always possess the same size, mass and spin. If they were truly uncaused, then,
by rights, we would expect to see all sorts of variations. We would see huge electrons the
size of mountains suddenly popping into existence, or electrons with half the mass of a
normal electron, or indeed billions of other objects that are nothing like electrons at all.
There would be little or no repetition at all, just an endless variety of unique entities. Why
then, if they are supposed to be without cause, do we keep seeing identical electrons over
and over again?

The crux of the whole issue is as follows: If you assert that a certain class of things is
constantly arising uncaused, then you are, in effect, asserting that coincidences of mind-
boggling, stupendous proportions are constantly occurring within the Universe. The two
inherently go together. To insert non-causality into the fabric of Reality is to assert that at
least some things happen by unbelievable coincidence.

To illustrate this point more clearly, let us consider the everyday act of turning on a light
switch and observing light flooding a darkened room. As we all know, the appearance of
the light is due to the many causal processes which are initiated when the switch is turned
on. A circuit is closed, allowing an electric charge to flow through the connecting wires,
which then causes the filament within the light bulb to become charged, and so on. This
is why, barring unforeseen or unusual circumstances, whenever we turn on the switch,
light always appears an instant later. It never appears by itself, for example, with the
switch remaining off. Nor does it ever appear ten seconds before the switch is turned on.
On the contrary, the same ordered process always seems to occur, without fail, until the
components break down in some way.

Now suppose, for the sake of argument, that scientists were to assert that light from a
bulb arises without any cause at all. This might sound ludicrous, but it is essentially no
different to asserting that electron-positron pairs arise without cause. You would reckon
the fact that light always seems to appear whenever the switch is turned on would
automatically present a major problem to the scientists. If light really does arise uncaused,

25
then why does it always appear in that particular instance and in no other? Why does it
not appear at other times, or in other kinds of circumstances? Wouldn't the fact that it
always appears the instant after the switch is activated constitute the most amazing
coincidence? Undoubtedly it would.

We could perhaps accept such an occurrence happening once or twice in a lifetime and
put it down to ordinary coincidence. But if it happened time and time again, without fail,
in the same ordered way, then clearly we would be looking at something which is far
beyond the realm of coincidence. It would indicate without any shadow of a doubt that
the hypothesis that light arises from a bulb uncaused is nonsensical.

To grasp the scale of the coincidence that we are looking at here, imagine an infinitely
large barrel that contains an infinite number of lottery balls. Imagine, also, that this
infinitely large barrel somehow gets spun each week and six numbers are drawn out of it.
Finally, imagine that the same six numbers are pulled out each time. Such an occurrence
would be truly amazing, to say the least. Even if it just happened twice in a row, it would
be incredible - let alone three or four or five zillion times. And yet this is precisely the
sort of mind-boggling coincidences that quantum physicists are asking us to believe is
happening within the quantum realm all the time.

I realize that the subatomic realm is a very mysterious place, with some pretty strange
things going on. But clearly, non-causality is not one of them. It is time that quantum
physicists stop leading us up the garden path and accept that, on a fundamental level at
least, Einstein was right all along. God does not play dice.

The Limitations of Science

Protestations from the physics community notwithstanding, a positron-electron pairing

always has causes. They may not be causes that we are easily able to recognize or can
model with perfect precision, but that does not undermine the logical truth that they do
have causes. All it means is that our physical and mathematical tools are too currently
limited to observe them. It could be that they will always be too limited, or perhaps one
day we will indeed be able to develop better tools and create better theories to replace
quantum mechanics. Who knows? Either way, it does not make any difference to the
logical fact that causality reigns just as supremely in the subatomic realm as it does in the
larger world.

Don’t ever let physicists fool you over this point. When they speak of quantum particles
arising uncaused, they are not really asserting that they arise without any cause whatsoever.
They are fully aware that certain causal circumstances need to be in place before a particle
can be generated - for example, the presence of energy, the existence of a quantum

26
fluctuating void, the existence of anti-matter, and so on. Some even believe that they
need the presence of an observer.

What physicists really mean, then, is that the particles do not follow the usual causal
patterns that we are familiar with in the everyday world. The old theories of classical
physics are unable to model their behaviour; we cannot always pin down the properties
of a particle’s behaviour with the same precision that we can with, say, a moving tennis
ball. We have to instead use cumbersome statistical-based theories which seem to work
best when using the assumption that particles pop into existence without cause.

Physicists have no trouble accepting this assumption because they are happy enough that
quantum theory works. That is the only thing which matters to them. They do not really
care that it involves a philosophical falsehood. If it is a choice between sticking to a
workable scientific theory or adhering to philosophical truth, they will always choose the
former. Understanding ultimate reality and becoming philosophically wise does not
particularly interest them. They only want to make scientific breakthroughs, receive praise
and approval from their peers and win Nobel Prizes.

All this is nothing new, of course. Science has always progressed on the back of
philosophical falsehoods. The ancient astronomers, for example, used to believe that the
sun and the stars revolved around the earth as part of their anthropocentric philosophy.
Despite this delusion, they were still able to make accurate predictions concerning the
movements of stars. Even though their vision was radically flawed they nevertheless
managed to make significant advances in their field.

There are many other similar examples. Big Bang cosmology was created out of the
fiction that the Universe (i.e. utterly everything) had a beginning. Classical physics arose
out of the fiction that Nature was a giant, clock-like machine that had been wound up
and set in motion by a creator God. Advances in neurology and neuropsychology have
been made on the assumption that the brain is essentially a computer, and so on. It
happens all the time. Science thrives on philosophical lies.

This is particularly true of quantum physics, which currently steeps itself in the fiction
that subatomic particles arise uncaused. Obviously, the adoption of such a fiction
simplifies things for the quantum physicist and helps make his mathematics run more
smoothly, but it is still a fiction nonetheless. It still brings the physicist into self-
contradiction and philosophical delusion.

In summary, then, a scientific theory does not have to be philosophically grounded in

reality for it to be an effective theory. It is possible for it to contain serious metaphysical
flaws and yet do a sound job in predicting empirical phenomena. Indeed, having a
distorted philosophical perspective almost seems to be a prerequisite for doing good
science! Because of this, scientists are the last people we should be looking to for

27
guidance in philosophical knowledge. They are no more attuned to the wisdom of the
Infinite than is the average hairdresser or bank clerk. Although they love to pretend they
are deep thinkers, their philosophical musings are nearly always very juvenile and
immature.

Albert Einstein was a classic example of this. Although he may have been a great thinker
within the field of abstract physics, whenever he stepped outside this realm he invariably
became very mediocre. It was as though a switch inside his brain automatically turned off
the moment he stepped out of his office. One minute he was a great genius probing the
outer limits of physics, the next just another bland bumbling fool, indistinguishable from
all the other bland bumbling fools that grace this earth. The best philosophical insight he
could come up with was a kind of vague awe at the vastness and complexity of the
Universe. I mean, what an achievement! Any pimply adolescent who happens to smokes
a joint has the same insight. It is nothing.

True, Einstein did steadfastly adhere to the concept of causality in the face of stern
opposition from his colleagues in quantum physics. But it was a superficial concept of
causality that he adhered to, one that exclusively aligned itself with the theories of
classical physics. It was not the deep understanding of causality as understood by an
enlightened sage.

Unfortunately, Einstein is not alone in this behaviour. Scientists the world over
consistently display their ineptitude when it comes to philosophizing. It is simply not
their field of expertise. They are but methodical technicians within the ant-like collective
of the scientific enterprise, not world-shattering thinkers of the Infinite.

Philosophy is all about reaching beyond the uncertainties of empirical investigation and
taking hold of timeless logical knowledge. Science, by its very nature, can never yield this
kind of knowledge. So it would be foolish to base your philosophical outlook upon
whatever theories scientists happen to believe in. Not only are scientists themselves
unaware of the nature of Ultimate Reality, but their theorizing is always tentative and
provisional in nature. Nothing in science can ever be 100% certain. Even the most rock-
solid theories, such as the theory of evolution or the laws of thermodynamics, can be
overturned in a blink of an eye with the discovery of new evidence. They will always lack
a solid foundation. Thus, to base your philosophic outlook on scientific theory is to build
your house on sand. Sooner or later, it will all come tumbling down.

It is often said that this is the very strength of science, that its theories are always
tentative and open to falsification. While this is certainly true, it is also its great weakness.
Because its theories are always tentative and provisional, it cannot produce the kind of
absolute truth and absolute certainty that great philosophers hunger for. Thus, as far as
ultimate knowledge is concerned, science is a completely useless tool. Apart from

28
stimulating the mind into exploring the philosophical realm (that is, stimulate it into
leaving the scientific realm behind), it has nothing to contribute.

Of course, this is not to say that science is a worthless enterprise in other areas of life. It
clearly excels in what it is specifically designed to do - namely, creating interesting models
of the universe’s various processes and using these models to develop useful technology.
No one can dispute the far-reaching effects this has had on modern society. But we
should never get carried away with its successes and try to stretch science beyond its
inherent limitations. That would be irrational. Just as the Bible has its limits and cannot
be used as a tool for scientific knowledge, in the same way science too has its limits and
cannot be used as a tool for comprehending reality.

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 - Chapter Three -

The Concept of Free Will

Heaven and earth are ruthless.

They see the ten thousand things as dummies.
The wise are ruthless;
They see the people as dummies.

- Tao Te Ching

Addressing the question of free will is important because it forces one to draw the reality
of causality into the inner recesses of one’s being. Instead of keeping causality at a safe
distance in the imagination and treating it as though it were a dry academic theory, one
needs to let it soak into every pore of one’s being and allow it to work its magic. Only
then can the concept spring to life and propel us into the Infinite.

Constant meditation on causality is the first step towards becoming enlightened. One has
to learn how to "see" it in everything in the world, including every aspect of one’s inner
life. The more you keep causality in mind and focus your consciousness upon it, the
better. Even if maintaining such a focus comes at the expense of other activities and
thought-processes, you will be better off in the long run. It will slowly dissolve your
delusions about the nature of existence and gradually alter your consciousness, making it
far more receptive to wisdom. As I mentioned in the introduction, the path to
enlightenment is primarily one of freeing one’s consciousness from an entrenched
deluded perspective and re-orientating it so that it slides effortlessly into enlightenment.
The concept of causality is the perfect tool for this task, particularly in the initial stages of
freeing the mind from entrenched delusion.

Integrating the concept of causality with every aspect of one’s being allows one to see
through the illusion of self and makes it possible for us to perceive our true nature, which
is God. It helps us to realize the truth that we ultimately lack any kind of existence, that
God is the doer of all things, and that life and death is an illusion. This is a truly
remarkable knowledge and, for the sake of a saner world, needs to be understood by
everyone.

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In this chapter, then, I will examine the concept of free will in detail and delineate the
way in which it is an illusion - and also the way in which it is real. I say real because free
will does have a certain kind of reality, just not the kind that people normally think it
does. To understand the way in which it is real, we first need to dismantle the plethora of
false conceptions which surround it. Once that is done, we can then sift through what is
left.

The Gradual Shrinking of Our Will

So how much freedom and control do we as human beings really have? Do we have any
at all? Let’s examine it:

To begin with, we had no say over the fact that we were born at all. We were just flung
into existence without anyone consulting us in the matter. We also had no say over what
type of world we were flung into, nor the properties and laws it should have. All of it was
decided in our absence.

The question of precisely when and where we were to be born, and what kind of culture
we were to be born into, was also never brought to our attention beforehand. No one
ever sought our advice in these matters. We could have just as easily been born on the
other side of the world, in a primitive backwater, than the spot where we finally did
emerge. It was a pure lottery that we didn’t.

We were never consulted over the choice of our parents, nor over the teachers and elders
who were to eventually shape our lives. Anyone could have been there for us. We might
have been pushed in any direction. I could have just as easily spent my entire adult life in
mental institutions due to damage caused by abusive parents or teachers. Again, it was
pure chance that I didn't.

No one ever asked us what physical features we would like to have, nor what our genetic
make-up should be, nor what sex we would like to develop into, nor even what kind of
personality traits we would like to possess. All of these things were imposed upon us
from without. Plato used to thank the gods that he was born a Greek and not a foreigner,
and a man and not a woman. In doing so, he was simply acknowledging the fact that he
had no say in these matters at all.

We cannot suddenly fly up into the air of our own accord and perform a number of
summersaults and aerial cartwheels before soaring off to the nearest treetop. Nor can we
turn invisible, or suddenly expand to thirty feet in size, or go through walls as though
they were not there. We cannot suddenly transform ourselves into a horse, or a bird, or a

31
fish, or a super-intelligent alien. We cannot bend our arms at the places where there are
no joints.

Our likes and dislikes are not really our likes and dislikes at all. Every single one of them
was built into our system long before we had a chance to veto them. Any control that we
think we might have over our tastes is an illusion. In whatever area in life, whether it be
in food, art, men, women, humour, music or philosophy, we just like what we like and
dislike what we dislike - end of story.

Mentally, we cannot think at the rate of a million thoughts per second, or understand
every detail of the universe in a single flash, or create objects out of thin air. We are
entirely limited by the way our mind functions. We cannot change the nature of
deductive logic, or gain empirical information about the world without using our senses
in some way. We are entirely bound by the fundamentals of logic, consciousness and
existence.

So where exactly, in the light of all this, is our precious free will? The more we look into
the matter, the less real it seems! And if we were to take this process to the very end and
examine all of the billions of causes which shape every decision that is made, we would
see that what we call "our will" is entirely a chimera, an illusion concocted by our minds.

Whenever we make a decision, no matter how minor and insignificant it may seem, all of
the various aspects described above come into play. Our likes and dislikes, for example,
always play a huge part in determining our choices. Our genetic make-up and upbringing
also play significant roles. Our moods and whims, themselves causally created by our
genetics and experiences, also play their part. Even our inability to turn invisible or fly
unaided to treetops has an influence on our decisions. All of these factors, plus countless
more, combine to determine each and every one of choices precisely. In the end, there is
no room for us to manoeuvre at all. It has all been determined from the outset.

Keeping in mind, of course, that there was never any "outset"...........

Where Does Our Will Begin?

The question of free will is first and foremost a question of origins. Do our thoughts and
decisions originate in our brains (or minds)? Or are they like everything else in the
Universe and have innumerable antecedent causes which stretch back into the
beginningless past? The answer to this is crucial to the resolution of the question of
whether free will exists. For if our thoughts and decisions have no ultimate origination,
then free will cannot ultimately exist.

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We can go further. Even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that origins are possible,
be it in the brain or wherever, it would still be impossible for free will to exist. An event
that originates without cause is, by definition, a completely spontaneous and random
event, which is totally incompatible with the concept of free will. Decisions that
mysteriously pop into our brains without rhyme or reason cannot be classed as an act of
will on our parts. They are no more a product of our will than is the toss of a coin, or the
random generation of lottery numbers.

Here lies the essential irony of free will. On the one hand, free will, as a process, needs
the existence of causality in order for it to function. It needs causality because free will is
a concept that refers to the mind willing or causing things to happen. And yet, at the
same time, it is the sheer reality of causality which nullifies its existence. Thus, the very
conditions which are needed to support it are also the very conditions which erode all
possibility of it existing. It therefore cannot exist.

The Impotency of Consciousness

When I was a young man, I had a simple but important insight into the workings of
consciousness. I recognized that every thought and decision enters consciousness from
some "place" outside of consciousness. In each moment of time, we do not actually
create or choose the thought we will have in the next moment. It is not as if our
consciousness burrows down into the neural pathways of the brain like a scurrying clerk
and consciously selects what it will think next. It is too busy occupying itself with the
thought that is already in consciousness to worry about what happens next. Instead, our
thoughts and decisions just "pop" into the mind via a process that occurs completely
beyond our awareness.

If truth be told, none of us have the faintest understanding of how a thought or decision
is formulated in our minds. We have no consciousness or control over the thousands of
millions of chemical processes which lead to its formation. All we ever experience is the
end result. And yet here we are, proudly believing that we are exercising our free will!

If free will is to have any chance of being a reality, then at the very least our "willing" has
to constitute a conscious act of some kind. If something is not a conscious act, then by
definition it is just a blind happening - no different from the wind blowing through the
trees or the waves crashing into the rocks. Since a blind happening is totally incompatible
with the notion of "willing", it is clear that consciousness has to underpin any process
that we care to call "free will".

But what exactly is consciousness? In essence, it is the act of perceiving one object, or a
collection of objects, at a time. In each moment, consciousness is wholly absorbed in its

33
field of awareness, during which it is unaware of everything else in the Universe. I might
glance at a tree, for example, and, in the very moment that I do so, I am unconscious of
everything else in the world, with the possible exception of the tree's immediate
surroundings. In the next moment, I might focus upon a car, or another person's speech,
or an inner train of thought - and each time, my mind automatically blocks out the entire
Universe apart from these things. For all practical purposes, the rest of the Universe
might as well not exist at all.

Consciousness is oblivious to everything except what it perceives in each moment. This

is the fundamental truth of its being. It is even blind to what it will perceive next. Thus,
by its very nature, consciousness cannot bring anything into existence.

You might feel that you are causing the next thought to arise, but what is really
happening? Some muscular tension, a sense of continuity between one thought and the
next, an urge to bring forth a new thought, an impulse to act, etc - in other words,
happenings within consciousness. But consciousness itself is entirely passive in the
matter.

This is not to say that consciousness is unimportant to human behaviour. On the

contrary, consciousness is integral to our behaviour as biological organisms. It is the
means by which we correlate and unify data from our senses. It enables us to respond
quickly to complex situations. It provides us with the capacity to fuse our various
perceptions, conceptions and reasonings into a manageable and self-consistent whole.
Without consciousness, our species probably would have died out long ago.

But one thing consciousness cannot do is originate thoughts and decisions as though it
were somehow an isolated, self-sustaining entity existing above the world of causation. In
reality, our thoughts and decisions arise out of a multiplicity of factors - neurological,
chemical, hormonal, psychological, environmental, etc - which consciousness also plays a
part. But there is no beginning to any of it - anywhere.

God is the doer of all things

Sage: If people want to reject the wisdom of the Infinite, that's their choice.

Student: How can they have any choice if they don't have any free will?

Sage: Obviously, their decision to reject the wisdom of the Infinite is caused.

Student: Just as some people are caused to reject the truth of cause and effect?

34
Sage: Exactly.

Student: And just as most people are caused to believe they have free will?

Sage: That's right. Those who believe they are making choices are caused to believe they
are making choices, just as those who realize their choices are caused are caused to have
this realization. God is the doer of all things, as Ramakrishna used to say.

Some people are caused to be rational and see the truth of universal causation, while
other people are caused to be irrational and evade such a truth. Some people are even
caused to throw up their arms at the mere sight of the word "causation" and make loud
assertions about the reality of their free will. Such is the play of God.

Student: Ah, what you say is so obviously true! How can people ignore this great
knowledge?

Sage: They ignore it because they are caused to do so.

All of our Choices are Prompted

It is often said that humans have free will because they possess the capacity, if presented
with an identical set of circumstances, to choose differently. That is, if a person could
somehow live through a particular situation again, with every detail remaining exactly the
same, he would have the ability to make a different choice. The decision to get out of bed
now, as opposed to five minutes later, for example, could somehow be reversed, or
changed, in some way.

The problem with this kind of thinking is that it rests on an arbitrary distinction between
the causal processes happening inside the person's head and those happening everywhere
else in the world. In other words, it pretends that the causal processes inside the head
either do not exist at all, or else play a limited role in the decision-making process. So
already a false duality within the Universe is being created. This then leads to the belief
that the core of each person in the two identical sets of circumstances is a kind of empty
void. The causal processes inside each of their brains suddenly come to an end and the
empty void then takes over. One of the empty voids somehow chooses one way to
behave and the other chooses another way. This is clearly insane, a hangover from the
old religious belief in the soul.

If a person were to choose differently in an identical situation it would only be because

he had been prompted to choose differently from something inside him - a thought, a

35
memory, a feeling, a sensation, an impulse, or whatever. Decisions do not just materialize
out of thin air. An eclectic mix of intellectual, psychological, emotional and biochemical
forces combine together, in each moment, to create them. And, of course, these forces
themselves have been causally created by millions of factors before them.

So unless the same person could somehow be different - i.e. have a slightly different past,
a slightly different genetic make-up, a slightly different intellectual outlook, or be in a
slightly different mood - he would necessarily choose the same way in an identical
situation. If this were not so, if our decisions were really the product of an empty void
inside us, then in effect we would have no connection to our past, nor to our identity as
human beings. We would be nothing more than featureless impersonal clones trapped in
an alien shell and forced to make decisions for it.

Can a more depraved view of the human race be imagined? It is only because the empty
void does not exist and free will is an illusion that human beings are able to have
individuality, personality and identity.

A Dialogue *

A: I am not a machine. I am a human being. A machine does not have will. A machine
has no power of determination at all.

B: In the future, we will probably be able to program machines with determination and
will.

A: Then, they will be machines that are programmed with determination and will. They
will not be human beings.

B: And they'll probably thank the good Lord that they're not!

A: They will thank Microsoft or Intel or Mattel or whoever processes and manufactures
them, the good Lord notwithstanding.

B: I consider myself to be a machine in the sense that I am made of parts and everything
I do is the result of causal processes. I also consider my "soul" to be a machine as well -
for the same reasons.

But just because I am a machine, it doesn't mean that I cannot experience the highest
that life has to offer. There is no law of nature which states that machines are forever
condemned to remain ignorant. To conclude that would involve a false step of logic.

36
A: I consider the human being as above the level of a machine. Machines do not suffer.
Machines do not want or need; neither do they think; neither can they prevail; neither can
they conquer; neither can they thwart or oppose.

If, in the future, there are machines developed that can suffer, then, we will have trouble
discerning machines from human beings. It will become difficult to unplug a machine
that is begging for its life. Of course, if by then, the human race has been completely
replaced by machines, unplugging will probably not be a big deal.

B: Yes, it is possible that the machines will become a lot more intelligent and wiser than
ourselves and will start to plan ways of "unplugging" ourselves. They might come to
think that we are a hindrance to their purposes in life, just as we nowadays consider a
faulty computer to be a hindrance to our own aims.

A: I recognize causal processes but, since these causes are beyond finite knowledge, I do
not consider my "soul" to be a machine. One can trace back the human being to the
trilobite and to paramecia and still not find the exact cause of life; because the cause of
life is beyond the material. Therefore, my "soul" is beyond the material. I am the product
of my genetic lineage only to a point; only to the point that it can be explained. After
that, is the unknown and I consider that I belong to that. Ultimately, the being that lives
inside my body cannot be fully explained. Machines can be explained. Therefore, I am
not a machine.

B: I don't see any difference. Like humans, a machine is a product of innumerable

causes, some of which we know about and others we don't. We might know a bit about
the chips and wires that we design, but we don't have 100% knowledge of the metals and
chemicals that are used to build these component parts, nor about the ancient
environmental conditions that created these compounds to begin with, nor about the
cosmological processes which created the earth and the solar system, and so on. In other
words, a machine is essentially as mysterious as a human. In both cases, their causes
stretch back and become lost in the unknowable past.

A: The difference is that, despite the fact that we may not have full knowledge of all the
materials when we manufacture a machine, it is still an item that has been manufactured
by man. It is devoid of spirit. It is not imbued with a "soul." A "soul" is the peculiar gift
of humans. Many of us deliberately ignore this. Many of us are heartless and greedy;
without either passion or compassion; without conscience; but the "soul" is there
nevertheless and it will be reckoned with before one dies. I define a machine as a thing
which is constructed or programmed by man. Human beings are not constructed nor
programmed by men. They are separate.

B: What about when genetic technology reaches the point where we can begin to design
our own children? This isn't too far away, you know. We'll soon be able to select our

37
children's hair and eye colour, their height, the size of their nose, their personality traits,
their level of intelligence, and so on. When this happens, will it mean that our children
have become machines?

A: No, the selection of hair color and eye color and other traits does not make the child a
machine. I think that such selection is a fine thing if it is done by individuals according to
their preferences. A lot of people would want a child of average intelligence rather than
one with a brilliant IQ. Plus, even if the technology is available to choose these things, a
lot of people will prefer to take pot luck. Women often select a mate based on the kind
of children she thinks he will produce. I did and I got -- give or take a few little
ingredients -- what I wanted.

There is no law of nature that states that human beings are machines. There is no law of
nature that states that human beings are anything. If humans are machines, it is because
they have defined themselves as such. I reject the definition. I do not have to be a
machine. I am not controlled. It would be a false step of logic to conclude that human
beings are machines. Such a step would imply complicity and subservience to The
Machine.

B: Well, we're always being controlled - by our causes. We are already part of God the
Machine. It's inescapable. Accept it.

A: I absolutely accept that. But I am not a machine. I rail against it, with all my strength,
every day of my life. With every ounce of will and determination I have -- not yet
extricated or duplicated by androids -- I refuse to serve God, The Machine. When I say,
God the Machine, I am not speaking of an infinite God nor of Nature or the Universe or
whatever it may be called. I am speaking of man's specific want for self annihilation. As
much as is possible for me to do so, I resist the controls that are placed on me by society
-- the Machine. I accept that I am the product of causes and that such causes are
inescapable. I am not a machine.

B: What you are really speaking against, then, isn't the idea that you are a machine, but
the ever-present threat of soullessness. That certainly isn't a lost cause, I agree.

The Practical Nature of Free Will

Like everyone else, I am a person who makes hundreds of decisions each day. This is an
undeniable fact of my existence. From the moment I awake in the morning and decide
whether to get up straight away or stay in bed for a few extra minutes, to the moment

38
sixteen hours later when I decide it is time to go to bed again, I am constantly making
choices and decisions. Indeed, it is impossible for me to stop doing this, short of lapsing
into a coma or experiencing death. It is part and parcel of my having a conscious mind
and a vested interest in the way the future unfolds. It is the way evolution has made us.

There is no question, then, that the choices I make each day are real. And yet the fact
remains that these choices are also a product of endless causation. How can these two
realities be reconciled? Are they really at odds with one another? Or is there some way of
combing the two?

The answer lies in recognizing that what we call our "free will" exists in a practical sense
only. It is a concept that essentially refers to the decision-making process inside the brain.
While this decision-making process is undeniably real and experienced by us on a
continual basis, the idea that it is somehow free of the larger process of causality is a
delusion. Our will only seems free because of our limited ability to trace the innumerable
causal chains that lead to the creation of each decision. If we could somehow uncover
the totality of these causes, we would naturally perceive the truth that our thoughts and
decisions are fully determined.

It is a bit like what happens when we watch an illusionist perform a trick and we cannot
work out how it is done. Because we were not able to follow the mundane causal
processes underlying the trick, we naturally become astonished and instinctively conclude
that it was performed by "magic". And yet if the illusionist was to explain his trick, the
magic would suddenly vanish and we would be wondering how on earth we were fooled
in the first place! It is our ignorance of the mundane causes of the trick which creates the
"magic", not the trick itself. Similarly, it is our ignorance of the causes of our thoughts
and decisions which creates the illusion of free will.

Abandoning the concept of free will does not require us to pretend that the decision-
making processes inside the brain are non-existent. We are not unconscious automatons
whose every action is directly determined by external factors. The internal workings of
the brain clearly play a very large role. However, and this is what always has to be kept in
mind, they are not the source of our decisions. The brain is no more a source of our
decisions than the moon is a source of light.

Even though I constantly exercise my will throughout the day, making all sorts of
decisions and choices, never for a moment do I forget the reality behind these decisions.
Never for a moment do I forget that each and every decision comes out of the process of
endless causation, which is Nature.

It is a process which has become habitual and automatic, so that I no longer have to
actively think about it. My mind is steeped to its pores in the knowledge that my every
thought is the result of causation. So nowadays, whenever I conceive of free-will, my

39
mind effortlessly conceives of its illusory nature. Indeed, these two conceptions (free-will
and its illusory nature) have been fused together into a single greater perception that has
changed the way I view everything in the universe.

Freedom from Past Conditioning

A: Can a person who is aware of the nature of cause and effect become free of all his
conditioning?

B: He acquires a tool that can help him become free of his conditioning, or at least those
parts of his conditioning that are based in false thinking.

A: But can he not free himself from cause and effect altogether?

B: There is a story in Zen in which a master was asked if a Buddha transcends the law of
cause and effect. He answered, "Yes", and was promptly reborn as a fox for five hundred
lifetimes! Another master was asked the same question. "He does not obscure it", was his
wise reply.

It should be obvious that it is impossible to transcend cause and effect. Cause and effect
is what we are made of, and it governs our every movement. Thus any attempt we make
to transcend something will always be causal in nature. We can no more transcend cause
and effect than we can transcend our own minds and peek at what lies beyond.

However, if you are referring to certain categories of causes that we should be fighting
against - such as insane cultural traditions, irrational beliefs, herd-values, fashions,
emotional biases, etc - then fighting these things is clearly a worthwhile thing to do, and a
noble person will certainly fight the good fight if caused to do so.

A: If everything we do is caused, then what is the difference between those who

rebelliously try to break their conditioning and those who passively accept the status quo?
There is no real difference, is there?

B: Imagine two balls that are released from a great height and allowed to fall. One of the
balls has a parachute attached to it and floats gently downwards. The other has no
parachute and quickly plummets to the ground.

The distinction between these two balls is essentially no different to the distinction we
make between the person who passively goes along with his conditioning and the person
who exerts his will against it. The existence of gravity and the mass of the balls have
combined to "condition" the balls to fall quickly to the ground when released. The

40
presence of a parachute, however, allows one of the balls to go against its conditioning to
some degree. This is even more the case if the ball is fitted with a jetpack or an anti-
gravity device of some kind.

Naturally, cause and effect has determined that one of the balls has a parachute attached
to it and the other doesn't, just as cause and effect determines that one person has a
strong, rebellious will and another doesn't.

Causality Does Not Mean "Fate"

Since everything is caused, it follows that everything that happens has been fully
determined to happen. The seeds of their occurrence have already been sown in the
causal conditions which precede them, which means that predetermination rules over all
things. For whatever occurs in the Universe is the inevitable result of what happens
beforehand.

Having said that, I do not subscribe to the fatalistic view which asserts that, no matter
what we do, the future cannot be changed. That is an irrational viewpoint because it
denies the fact that we ourselves are part of the causal process and therefore have a say in
what eventuates in the future.

The question is sometimes put to me if I believe that everything is caused, then why do I
teach others about the path to enlightenment? Why all this insistence upon the
elimination of ignorance, and the promotion of reason and truth? If people are fated to
remain ignorant, then what can anyone do about it? Isn’t it foolish to continually preach
and implore other people to be other than they are determined to be?

This kind of thinking is limited because it pretends that people lack influence over the
development of others. It ignores the fact that mental development is determined by all
sorts of factors - evolution, genetics, culture, parents, friends, teachers, books, and so on.
Philosophers and spiritual teachers can also be a factor in the mix. If a person is inspired
by a philosopher to pursue the path to enlightenment, then it means that he has been
determined by his causes to do so. And if one day he manages to become enlightened,
then the philosopher would count as one of the causes of his breakthrough.

There is a school of thought which opines that if it was not for the existence of past
geniuses - such as Jesus, Socrates, Diogenes, Buddha, Lao Tzu, etc - then the human race
would have long ago degenerated into anarchy and barbarism. I think there is a lot of
truth to this view. Although they lived thousands of years ago, these geniuses are still
having a substantial influence upon the world today. They have become part of the

41
factors that have determined your own mental development, and mine. Ethically, they are
still propping the world up.

In the end, genetic material is not the sole determining factor of a person’s nature. Just as
important are the experiences and mentors one has as a child, and as an adult. While
genetics does predispose one towards certain paths in life and not others, it is one’s
experiences as an individual which determine the path that one eventually adopts and
how far along it one goes.

In my own case, even though I am genetically predisposed towards thinking logically and
valuing truth, I may not have travelled as far as I have if it was not for the past heroic
efforts of thinkers like Socrates, Huang Po, Jesus, Chuang Tzu and Kierkegaard. They
helped spur me along a path that, genetically speaking, used to only exist as a potential
option. It is because of this that I am motivated to teach others about the path to
enlightenment. I can become that missing ingredient which can spark what is merely a
latent disposition for wisdom inside others into action.

* This was a real discussion between Marsha Faizi and David Quinn on Genius Forum, which occurred
in February 2001

42
 - Chapter Four -

Being Judgmental and Abandoning Life

Together we must learn all, we must learn to climb above ourselves to ourselves, and
cloudlessly to smile - Cloudlessly to smile down, shining eyed and very remote, when
beneath us violence and purpose and guilt steam like rain.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

I am known to be quite a judgmental person, so the question is sometimes put to me that

if I believe everything is caused, including all human behaviour, then why am I so
condemning of others? Why am I critical of those who avoid being truthful and choose
to pursue less lofty paths in life instead?

I usually answer this by pointing out that the process of making judgments is a natural
function of the mind. In its purest form, judgment is simply the act of apprehending the
truth of a situation. It is what the mind does naturally when unencumbered by egotism,
bias, prejudice, dogmatism, insecurity, fear, anger, and all of the other distorting forces
which come into play whenever one has strong emotional attachments. Making a
judgment about a certain kind of behaviour, whether it be displayed in other people or in
oneself, is no different to making a judgment about the validity of 1+1=2. It is simply the
act of accepting reality as it is.

This kind of judgmentalism should not be confused with moral judgmentalism, as

displayed by fundamentalist Christians and haughty matrons. Moral judgmentalism is
essentially an expression of contempt by self-righteous individuals and rarely has
anything to do with the pure act of discerning truth. Whenever I make a judgment about
a certain kind of behaviour, I am always aware that the person involved is fully caused to
behave in the way that he does and therefore fundamentally innocent and blameless. At
bottom, we are all just puppets on the string of Nature. She is the sole determiner of
everything that happens and ultimately we have no say in the matter. All we can do is go
along for the ride - if Nature allows us to.

43
Judging human behaviour, in its purest form, is no different to judging anything else in
the Universe. One can examine a bacteria-infested tree, for example, and correctly
declare that it is diseased. Such a judgment is relatively egoless and contains no moral
import at all. There is no suggestion that one is blaming the tree in any way. One is
simply acknowledging a fact. The tree, due to its causes, is unhealthy. It does not make
the tree inferior in an ultimate sense. It may be inferior to other trees in terms of health,
but nevertheless it is still a perfect manifestation of Reality, as is the bacteria which
infested the tree. It still continues to possess the same level of ultimate significance as any
other object in existence.

One constantly hears from religious and spiritual people that we should be non-
judgmental, particularly towards other people. However, this is very naïve and foolish.
Not only is it impossible for us to refrain from making judgments while remaining
conscious, but the very attempt to be non-judgmental constitutes an act of violence
towards one’s own mind. It is an attempt to circumvent the mind’s natural inclination for
making assessments, which is a form of madness.

In my experience, it is usually insecure, feminine-minded people who chant the mantra of

non-judgmentalism the loudest. It is very prevalent in the New Age movement and in
modern Buddhism and Hinduism, all of them very feminine religions. In wanting people
to be non-judgmental they are merely expressing their desire not to be judged
themselves. Their self-esteem is so wrapped up in what other people think of them that
they are overcome by the desire to put a halt to everyone’s thought processes, just so that
they may never be judged in a negative light. It is a form of petty selfishness on their
parts.

We do not need to pander to this kind of insecurity and cowardice. Such pandering is
unhealthy from a spiritual perspective. It diminishes human consciousness and creates a
barrier between us and truth. If we allow the mind’s natural ability to apprehend truth to
be constantly undermined by the desire not to hurt people with our judgments, then it
will gradually fall into a state of atrophy and we will be spiritually dead.

Rather than trying to cease being judgmental, our goal should be to ensure that our
motivation for making judgments is pure, and that our judgments are always true. And
that can only come about by improving the quality of our thought and eliminating all
traces of egotism from our actions. The pure man who exercises his faculties for
judgment to the fullest is a rare treasure indeed. He openly articulates the truths that
nobody wants to hear. Although evil people hate him, he acts as our conscience in this
overly-fake world of ours. Rather than killing him off, we should all become like him.

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Punishing criminals

The issue of punishment is sometimes presented as an argument against causality. If

causality is real and responsible for all human behaviour, then what happens to our
notions of individual responsibility? How could modern society continue to function if
we regarded all people to be fundamentally blameless, regardless of what they did? On
what basis could we punish those who break the law?

This is a fairly easy one to resolve. From the perspective of our evolution as a species, the
main purpose behind punishing criminals has always been one of maintaining social
order and shaping the future of society. Punishment offers a deterrent to those who
contemplate breaking the law. That is its purpose. It has nothing to do with the concepts
of "free will" and "individual responsibility". You do not need to believe in free will in
order to punish someone. It is all about social harmony and protecting the established
order.

Of course, people are often punished for more petty reasons. Revenge tends to be a
common motivating factor, as is the desire on the part of the punishers to revel in their
self-righteousness. If this sort of emotionalism continues to be deemed acceptable by
society (and unfortunately, it still is), then yes, we probably do need to maintain the
illusion of free will. The pleasures of exacting revenge and lording it over others would
only be undermined if we accepted the truth that people are not ultimately responsible
for their actions. In a wiser, more civilized society, however - a civilization in which the
emotions of revenge and self-righteousness no longer exist - punishment of anti-social
behaviour would probably be run along entirely different lines, with the furthering of
human spirituality being the highest priority. Punishment would only be deemed
necessary to the extent that it fostered the conditions for wisdom.

The question of whether or not it is "wrong" to punish criminals, given that causality is
ultimately responsible for his actions, is meaningless. After all, the punisher himself is
also a part of the larger realm of causality and equally not responsible for his actions.
How can he do "wrong" in metering out punishment? This point was nicely illustrated by
the great sage of Ancient Greece, Diogenes:

"It's my fate to steal," pleaded the man who had been caught red-handed by Diogenes.
"Then it is also your fate to be beaten," said Diogenes, hitting him across the head
with his staff.

Trying to ascertain right and wrong in these kinds of matters is futile. Right and wrong
are subjective judgments. They chop and change depending on a person’s fundamental
values. A far more intelligent approach would be to simply accept the obvious truth that
the issue of punishment is determined by practical concerns only. Since a measure of

45
order and social harmony is needed for the maintenance of civilized life, deterrents are
needed for those who wish to behave in a mindless destructive fashion. If these
deterrents were to be removed, the rule of the jungle would quickly take over and the
very worst elements of the human race would soon be ruling society. This isn’t good for
anyone.

Although the affirmation of causality does eliminate the reality of free will in an ultimate
sense, it should be noted that it does not negate the concept of personal responsibility.
On the contrary, it reaffirms it. The realization that everything is created by cause and
effect invariably leads to the realization that every action we perform in the here and now
has consequences without end, affecting thousands, if not millions, of people in the
future. That is a tremendous responsibility to shoulder. Who among you is strong enough
for it?

The Concept of Karma

Although I am not a Buddhist, I often use the concept of karma to illustrate a point. It is
useful because it links the reality of causality with human psychology.

In a general sense, karma simply means cause and effect. A person’s karma is the product
of all the innumerable causes which have contributed to his development as an
individual. His genetic material, parents, teachers, life experiences, nationality, culture, the
evolution of the human species, the creation of life on earth, the formation of the solar
system - all have played their part in the shaping of his life. One can think of all these
things as his "past lives", while the endless consequences of every movement he makes
during his lifetime, consequences which will continue to ripple out into the world long
after he is dead, can be considered his "future lives". When the Buddha spoke of having
countless past lives, this is undoubtedly what he meant.

Most Buddhists use the word "karma" in a more specialized sense, however, strictly
confining it to the mental realm. In particular, they use it to refer to the way our choices
in each moment determine our future mental states. Wise choices generate "good karma"
which benefit us in the long run, while foolish choices generate "bad karma" which
invariably leads to suffering and hell. Two young people starting out in life can follow
very different paths depending on what choices they make. One of them makes the
choice to become a wise human being and spends his youth methodically laying down
the foundations for this to happen. He gradually detaches himself from the world of
delusion and, by the time he is middle-aged, he begins to enjoy the pleasures of Heaven.
The other youth chooses to lead a dissolute life, immersing himself in wine and women,
leading to multiple marriages, liver disease and a sense of overwhelming despair that his
life is effectively over. That is, he descends into hell.

46
Of course, the word "choice" here is simply a figure of speech. That the first young man
chose to value wisdom was not really his choice at all. It was the inevitable result of his
causes which stretch back endlessly into the past. He was fortunate to be the recipient of
a lot of good karma: a favourable set of genes, which was the product of innumerable
choices by his ancestors; a good upbringing, the product of his parent’s choices; a well-
balanced education, the product of his teacher’s choices; his experience with wise
mentors, either personally or through books, which was the product of his own past
choices; and so on.

He was also, it should be noted, the beneficiary of a lot of good luck as well - for
example, having the kind of early life experiences that build character instead of crushing
it; hearing a chance word from another which triggers a life-changing insight in his mind;
meeting a wise mentor at just the right time of his life; having none of his genes mutate
in a life-threatening or debilitating way, and so on. Thus, we can see that a person’s
destiny is as much determined by luck as it is by his karma.

This is where the more specialized conception of karma, as favoured by Buddhists,

breaks down. Buddhists are living in a dream world if they think that the whole of human
behaviour is solely the result of choices and personal karma. In reality, Nature is an
infinitely complex and messy affair, which makes it impossible to truly isolate a realm of
existence from everything else. A person’s mental and spiritual development is affected
by countless factors, only some of which stem from the choices he has made as an
individual. Like most other religious people, Buddhists are trying to escape reality by
immersing themselves in a simplified conceptual realm, one that has their own egos
firmly planted in centre-stage.

The concept of karma is probably most effective when used as a tool to analyse the
nature of emotional attachment. Emotional attachment is easily the biggest factor to
influence human decision-making and behaviour. A person who develops an attachment
to another person, or to an object, a belief, a set of values, a purpose, or whatever it may
be, automatically creates an array of mental habits which influences the rest of his life.
For example, a man who falls in love with a woman, and marries her, quickly forms the
habit of looking towards her for emotional comfort and companionship. His happiness
becomes intertwined with her presence and support, his self-esteem with her moods and
opinions. If she were to suddenly die, or run off with another man, he would be
devastated. Not only would he suffer the severe withdrawal symptoms that stem from
not having her around for his daily fix, but his agony would be compounded by his sense
of betrayal and sudden lack of self-worth. This is a classic example of karma in action.
Prior to this, he was lying back in a pleasant domestic heaven; now, suddenly, he has
been "reborn" into the hell-realms.

47
This process of being reborn into various mental realms is essentially what the Buddha’s
concept of reincarnation refers to. The doctrine of reincarnation is often misinterpreted
to be a life-after-death theory, but it really has nothing to do with that. It is instead a far
more practical, down-to-earth conception that refers to the mundane realities of human
life. We are all constantly being reborn into one mental realm or another. One minute we
might be in a state of boredom, for example, and thus having a mild experience of the
hell realms. But then suddenly, we find something interesting to do, which promptly
ejects us from the hell realms and causes us to become reborn in the heavens. Most
people’s lives are cyclic in this manner, constantly oscillating between the hells and the
heavens. Sometimes, as with the case of the husband above, they spend a lengthy period
in extreme hell; at other times, they ascend into pure heaven, such as when a person falls
in love. Usually, though, most people experience a bland existence of mild heavens and
hells.

In Buddhism, this cyclic process is called "samsara", the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.
This is quite an apt description when you think about it. When a person is reborn into a
different realm, it is as though he becomes an entirely different person. For example,
when a woman first falls in love, she is full of laughter, her eyes sparkle, her skin glows,
and she looks almost godly. But then her husband suddenly leaves her and everything
changes. Her eyes suddenly become lifeless, her skin becomes pasty, she loses energy and
her whole being begins to sag. Not only mentally, but physically she has been reborn.
The laughing goddess of yesteryear has well and truly died.

What ultimately causes a person to be flung around in this cycle of birth, death, and
rebirth is his emotional attachment to things - which, in turn, is created by his ignorance
of the nature of Reality. Because the deluded person is spellbound by the illusion of self-
existence (he believes that his self ultimately exists), his mind naturally focuses its
attention upon the protection and prosperity of this self. It falls into the daily habit of
trying to manipulate everything in a manner that best enhances the self’s prospects. Most
people do this so naturally and unconsciously in every moment of their lives that they are
not even aware they are doing it. They even believe they are being selfless most of the
time! But in truth, a person really only becomes selfless when he becomes so conscious
that he comprehends the nature of Reality and no longer believes in his own existence,
which is a very rare attainment.

The moment you form an emotional attachment and fall into the habit of seeking your
happiness in it, you are automatically sowing the seeds for your own future rebirth in the
hell realms, and probably for other people as well. That is to say, you are producing bad
karma.

Because things ultimately have no existence, to become emotionally attached to

something in this world is to become psychologically dependent on a mirage. But alas,

48
mirages cannot support such a heavy dependency. Sooner or later, they vanish, and you
are left flailing about in agony with nothing to hold on to. And what is worse, your
mirage-fixation sets a bad example for other people. You are teaching via your lifestyle
that being attached to mirages is a good and noble thing, thereby encouraging others to
do likewise. In this way, a part of you, the most evil part of you, is being reincarnated into
them.

You might as well go around beating up old grannies and raping little children and be
done with it. The effect is just the same. It does not matter how gentle and nice you
might think you are as a person, if your lifestyle encourages people to become fixated on
mirages, then you are directly contributing to the misery and suffering they will eventually
experience. I always have to laugh at those who say, "We should be free to do whatever
we like, as long as we don’t hurt anyone". It does not seem to stop these people from
entering into emotional relationships and falling in love! They seem oblivious to the fact
that love is easily the biggest source of human misery in the entire spectrum of human
behaviour.

In the end, all human suffering is generated in this way. Like moths to a flame, people are
forever chasing mirages and getting burnt by the process. It is a serious form of
psychosis which is nevertheless deemed to be perfectly rational and normal behaviour by
most of the human race. Not only is it deemed normal, but it is constantly praised to the
heavens in all corners of the globe. Love poems eulogize it, pop songs celebrate it,
Hollywood movies spin glowing yarns about it, wars break out over it. It is the essence of
what most people call "life". I call it the epitome of brainlessness.

Enlightenment is the process of putting an end to this psychosis. The enlightened person
is one who no longer seeks his happiness in mirages. He lives in the emptiness of Reality,
utterly at peace with the world and beyond all attachment. His mind is high on Heaven
itself and no longer possesses the capacity to suffer. He had the wisdom to spend his
youth chasing the one thing that is not a mirage - namely, Truth. Whereas ordinary
people continue to go around and around pursuing mirages in a cycle of madness, the
enlightened person rises above all this and attains the indescribable joy of nirvana.

It may be argued that not all human suffering is caused by ignorance and emotional
attachment and the chasing of mirages. Some of it can be caused by physical factors only.
Clinical depression, for example, is primarily caused by faulty chemistry in the brain. It
does not matter how wise or enlightened you are, the argument states, if you have that
kind of faulty chemistry in the brain, then you will suffer depression.

This is not really true, however. Although an illness such as depression does have some
underlying physical causes, there is a large psychological component as well. If the brain
of a fully enlightened sage were to malfunction in the manner associated with depression,
then yes, he would probably experience a loss of energy and some mental flatness. The

49
critical parts of his brain would not be receiving the proper chemical balance and
therefore would not be functioning as well as it could. But that would probably be the
extent of it. He would not experience the sheer emotional collapse and the sinking into a
dark hole that most depressed people experience. This is because he has long ago
abandoned the need for emotional sustenance and for external events to unfold in a
desirable way. He can no more emotionally collapse than an empty balloon can burst.
The whole affair would be little different to breaking a leg or contracting cancer -
inconvenient and physically painful, yes, but without the emotional trauma that deluded
people normally bring into it.

When a person comprehends the illusory nature of things and no longer seeks happiness
in anything, and no longer attaches himself to any object, it is then that he rises above
samsara and attains nirvana. He no longer enters the heavens (his lack of attachment
precludes him from experiencing happiness) nor the hells (he is no longer capable of
experiencing the loss of an attachment). Thus he no longer engages in the wheel of birth,
death, and rebirth. He becomes immortal, no longer believing in the charade of his own
existence. Just as a robber cannot steal anything from a person who has no possessions,
death cannot take anything away from the person who has emptied himself of all
attachment to life. He has literally conquered death, and not only death, but the Universe
itself. How my heart goes out to those who have achieved such a tremendous feat! You,
my friends, are the true heroes of this world.

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 - Chapter Five -

The Infinite

King Miland: What is Nirvana?

Nagasena: The question is wrongly put. How can a man describe all the interactions that ever
have been and ever will?

- from The Questions of King Miland

*****

Whoever believes that the All is deficient is himself completely deficient.

- Jesus, from the Gospel of Thomas

Having examined in detail the manner in which individual things come into being, it is
now time to turn our attention to the totality of existence. It is only by examining the
nature of the totality that we can begin to understand Reality as a whole.

This, in turn, will enable us to resolve age-old questions concerning the origins of the
Universe, the existence of God, and the meaning of life. More importantly, it will further
the reorientation process by which the mind leaves behind its core delusions and begins
to face the true nature of Reality.

In order to properly understand the totality, the student has to learn how to think non-
dualistically. By this, I do not mean he has to cease using dualistic concepts altogether
and enter a kind of non-dualistic realm, which is impossible for the human mind to do in
any case. Rather, he has to learn how to stop seeking the Truth within a dualistic

51
framework and instead skilfully manipulate dualistic concepts in a manner that generates
a proper understanding of non-duality.

In my experience, this is a very rare skill indeed. The main problem is that most people
have a strong vested interest in a particular dualistic belief. An obvious example is the
Christian concept of God. Christians generally conceive of God as "other" - that is, as
something separate from their own selves. They like to create this duality because (a) it
enables them to preserve the illusion of their own egos, and (b) it enables them to think
of God in an emotional manner; they can conceive of him as a kind of comfortable and
secure presence in which their egos can find refuge. Any attempt to think non-
dualistically would only undermine this dynamic. In effect, the Christian would have to
dismantle his entire world-view, which is unlikely to happen, especially if he has spent
many years establishing a lifestyle and an identity around it.

Christians are not the only ones at fault. Nearly all religious people are culpable, as too
are most atheists and agnostics. The average atheist/agnostic is often just as rigid and
content in his worldview as the Christian is, and fundamentally just as insane. Instead of
worshipping God, he worships something just as unreal - scientific truth. The leading
scientists have become his high priests, the scientific journals and books have become his
bible, scientific materialism has become his religion.

Like a devoted disciple, he regurgitates the words of the high priests and chants the
mantras of scientific materialism ("Ultimate Truth is unknowable", "everything is
uncertain", "scientific knowledge is the only valid knowledge there is", "matter is the final
reality", etc) as though they were the gospel truth. He himself has no idea whether these
things are actually true; he simply takes them on blind faith. They have become the tenets
of his new religion. And yet, just to compound the madness, he loves nothing better than
to turn around and laugh at the Christians for being mindless sheep!

For the average atheist/agnostic, it is enough to reject the irrationality of supernatural

religion. That is all that really matters to him. It is the extent of his drive towards truth.
As long as he can contrast himself with the religious lunatics he sees around him and
pretend that he is a rational human being, he is content. To push reason any further than
this would be, for him, a sign of madness. Thus, he shrinks away from the realm of
higher reasoning in the same way that a fundamentalist Christian shrinks away from the
theories of science.

I will explore this issue in more detail later in the book, but for now I simply want to
stress that in order to understand the wisdom of the Infinite, the student needs to learn
how to go beyond both the religious and atheistic/agnostic mindsets. Both mindsets are
locked within a limited branch of duality and need to be transcended. The belief in God
and the belief in scientific materialism spring from the same well of egotism, and

52
although the theist and the atheist love to castigate each other for their foolishness, in
reality they are both as foolish as each other.

The main problem is that they are both equally spellbound by the delusion of objective
existence. They believe that there really is a permanent physical world out there, one that
is unceasingly solid and three-dimensional, a kind of unchanging spacious realm in which
everything exists as a solid object, including ourselves and our minds. They do not see
that the physical world is never anything more than a creation of the moment, a kind of
momentary appearance that ultimately has no more substance than a dream. As a result,
they remain blind to the true nature of the world.

The person who is spellbound by the delusion of objective existence instinctively believes
that Ultimate Truth must reside in a created thing of some sort, whether it be in a
physical event such as the Big Bang or a quantum fluctuation, or abstractly in a
mathematical formula or a set of equations, or in a religious entity such as God. Or else
he rejects the possibility of there being any created entity which can house the Ultimate
Truth and thus rejects the concept of Ultimate Truth altogether (and thereby becomes an
atheist or a nihilist). All of these cases involve the delusion of thinking that Ultimate
Truth is to be found in an objective entity of some kind. If you wish to become
enlightened and comprehend the Infinite, you need to learn how to transcend this kind
of thinking altogether.

The Infinite

The Infinite is a term that refers to the totality of all there is. It is not a mathematical
concept, but a philosophical one. It is a concept that embraces everything there can
possibly be. There is not a single thing in existence which is not part of the Infinite. It is
literally everything, including ourselves. And since there is nothing else beyond the Infinite,
it constitutes Ultimate Reality. Sometimes I call it the Tao, at other times I call it God.

It is important to realize that since the Infinite comprises the totality of all there is, it is
not any "thing" in particular. It is not a specific object or event of some kind. It is not a
person, or a being, or a consciousness, or a force, or a spiritual essence. It lacks all form
whatsoever, even the form of nothingness. We cannot point to it, or isolate it from the
rest of existence, and say "there it is!" And yet there is never a time when we are not
perceiving and experiencing it. It stands right before our eyes, in all its glory, in each and
every moment of our lives. Only enlightened people, however, are awake to its true
nature.

Although the Infinite is not any particular "thing", neither is it separate or distinct from
the things of this world in any way. As an analogy, consider a lake of pure distilled water,

53
which is comprised solely of water molecules. It is easy to see that a particular water
molecule within the lake and the lake itself are two completely different things. And yet
at the same time, there is no "lake" over and above the water molecules which form its
body. The sum total of the water molecules is the lake.

Similarly, there is no "Infinite" over and above the finite objects which comprise it. The
things we see around us are literally the Infinite. There is no hidden mystical realm that
we have to seek. We only have to learn how to open our eyes and see what is already
there.

The Illusion of Separation

Even though the Infinite comprises the totality of all there is, it would be wrong to think
of it as a mere collection of discrete physical objects. It is a unity rather than a
multiplicity. The Infinite is a seamless continuum of which all things are part. The
boundaries that we subconsciously project onto it are not really there. Separation is
ultimately an illusion. Everything merges into each other to form an uninterrupted
process which has no beginning or end.

At what point exactly does a human being come into existence, for example? At the
moment when the male sperm penetrates the female egg? When the conceptus is
formed? A month after conception? The moment of birth? No matter where we decide
to draw the line, it will always be an arbitrary decision on our parts. It will always be a
construct of consciousness that we mentally project onto the proceedings. In reality,
there is only a continuum. The human never really comes into existence at all - except as
an illusion.

Nothing in the Universe has a beginning or an end. The causal processes that comprise a
particular object cannot be separated in any way from the causal processes that comprise
the rest of the Universe. It is our conceptualizing minds which arbitrarily carve up this
continuum into "things". It is we who decide where one thing ends and another begins.

The way the mind delineates Reality into "things" can be compared to the way we
delineate the earth’s surface into lines of latitude and longitude. While these lines are
obviously very useful for the purposes of navigation and measuring time and so forth, no
one would dispute that they are mental creations and nothing else. It is simply our way of
carving up the earth for practical purposes. The same applies to the existence of things
themselves. We find it useful to carve up Reality into "things" and to treat these carvings
as though they were real independent objects. As long as we never forget that the
"realness" and "independence" of these carvings is an illusion of our own creation, there
will never be a problem with our doing this.

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But alas, people do forget and wars break out.....

The fact that all boundaries are illusory does not mean that Reality is merely a featureless,
homogenous soup in which there is no differentiation at all. Instead, think of Reality as a
kind of flowing stream in which eddies and bubbles and all sorts of weird and wonderful
shapes are constantly being created. While these eddies and bubbles certainly exist to our
senses and seem to possess boundaries, it is easy enough to see that if we were to alter
our perspective sufficiently enough their boundaries would magically disappear and we
would observe their lack of separation from the rest of the stream. Similarly, even though
Reality is constantly differentiating itself into distinct forms, its sheer lack of boundaries
dictates that these forms ultimately have no beginning or end, and ultimately no real
existence.

Direct Experience of the World

At any given moment, our senses and minds experience a rich tapestry of colour, sounds,
smells, feelings, emotions and thoughts. It is a complex tapestry composed of countless
details, full of variety, ever-changing and yet always complete. It is like a fantastic work of
art, far greater than any masterpiece created by man. The details are almost mesmerizing.
No matter where one looks or how minutely one examines a single aspect of this
tapestry, the view is always intricate and rich. Anyone with a developed aesthetic sense
could never tire of gazing at its beauty.

Note that what we experience directly in any given moment cannot be disputed. For
example, if we perceive what seems like a tree in a particular moment, then it becomes an
indisputable fact that what we see in that moment is something which seems like a tree.
It is impossible for this to be refuted in any way. Even the mere attempt to refute it
would involve a tacit admission that one actually did perceive it. Of course, the additional
question of whether the object concerned really is a tree and not an hallucination of some
kind is open to debate, but that is a question which only arises after the initial perception.
The existence of the initial perception itself is beyond dispute.

Similarly, the perception of contrasts between different objects also cannot be disputed -
for example, the visible contrast between what seems like a tree and what seems like
empty space surrounding the tree. This direct perception of contrasts is beyond the
possibility of being an hallucination. It is real. And yet, at the same time, these contrasts
are never anything more an appearance to us as an observer. The perspective that we
create as observers is what allows these contrasts to come into being in the first place.
They have no other reality outside of this.

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A white cloud can seem sharply divided from the blue sky from our perspective here on
the ground, yet if we were to zoom up to the cloud and try to establish where the
boundary between the cloud and sky actually lies, we would not be able to do it. The
seemingly sharp boundary would give way to a fuzzy continuum in which the cloud
gradually thins out. Even the densest pieces of matter lack clear-cut edges when viewed
from the molecular or sub-atomic perspective. This illustrates the more general truth that
the boundaries and contrasts we perceive directly in the world are appearances only. They
are entities which only exist to an observer with a particular kind of perspective. Outside
of this perspective, they have no existence at all.

The contrasts that we perceive directly in the world obviously play a very large role in
determining how we should mentally carve up the world into "things". So when I said
earlier that the carving up process was an arbitrary one, I was using term "arbitrary"
rather loosely. Even though the way we mentally carve up the world is arbitrary in the
sense that we could easily choose to carve it up in a different manner if we wanted to, it
is undeniable that there are ways of carving which seem more natural and practical than
others.

For example, it is usually more natural for us to draw boundaries around a tree at the
interface of its bark (or branches or leaves) and the surrounding space, rather than, say, at
a line ten meters further out into space. It is more natural because the tree presents a
natural outline due to the contrast between its dense molecular structure and the relative
emptiness of the surrounding space. We generally find it more useful to think of the tree
as consisting solely of the dense molecular part, as opposed to, say, the "dense molecular
part + ten meters of surrounding space".

There are many instances, though, where this is not the case. Consider, for example, the
boundaries of Australia. Although there appears to be a natural outline of Australia in the
interface of its coasts and the adjoining seas, it is politically more useful to extend its
boundaries further out to sea, thus enabling the Australian Government to patrol its
coastlines and protect its interests more effectively. The strip of ocean between the
coastline and this projected boundary is officially regarded as being part of Australia.
Importantly, the widening of Australia in this manner is no more contrived or artificial
than that of confining it to its coastlines. Whether one chooses to lay the boundaries at
the coastlines or further out to sea, the process is exactly the same. In both cases, a
mental boundary is cutting up what is essentially a causal continuum.

In the end, how we choose to carve up the world is not so much an arbitrary process on
our parts, but one that is specifically determined by our goals and values. It is our desires
and values which determine what goals we have, and, in turn, what kind of world we
ultimately perceive. Hence the profound comment by the Buddha that "the world is
created by desire".

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A fundamentalist Muslim desires only the spread of Islam and because of this he lumps
all non-Muslims into one box, as things that need to be wiped out. To him, all non-
Muslims are the same. He doesn’t differentiate between them. They are just undesirable
clones to be killed. A Westerner, by contrast, does tend to perceive differences between
people, whether they be Muslims or non-Muslims, and this arises out of his desire for
individual freedom and a life of constant hedonistic pleasure, coupled with his lack of
desire for idealistic solutions. In both cases, desire is shaping what they perceive and
experience.

Categories

As soon as the mind projects boundaries around a perceived phenomenon and

determines it to have a beginning and an end, the next thing it does is try to categorize it.
It attempts to slot the perceived object into a pre-existing abstract framework which it
has developed over the course of its lifetime. This enables the individual in question to
quickly gain knowledge of what he is perceiving and to anticipate its behaviour. For
example, he might spy a small brown object on the ground, which his mind automatically
categorizes as a "leaf". In making this categorization, the individual is able to recall to
mind the behaviour of leaves in general and allows him to conclude that the small brown
object he perceives is likely to keep lying where it is. He can be fairly sure that it won’t
suddenly fly up and attack his throat, or attempt some other kind of threatening
behaviour. He can even bend down and examine it to see if he can learn anything more
about the behaviour and characteristics of leaves, and thus add another component to
the abstract framework for future reference.

Creating categories has long been a major tool of survival for our species. Reducing the
infinite complexities of the world to a manageable number of "things" allows our minds
to create an abstract map of the world and thus enables us to respond to situations with
greater skill and sophistication. It allows our reasoning abilities to extend far beyond the
very rudimentary forms found in animals and provides the platform for the acquisition of
hidden complex forms of knowledge, such as those explored by science and philosophy.
It also makes complex social interactions possible and underpins the laws and moral
codes of our society. In short, it has been an integral part of the creation of human
civilization.

Despite its great value in a practical sense, abstraction also possesses the ability to blind
us to what is ultimately true in life. Those who lose themselves in their abstractions
without realizing they are doing so (and unfortunately, nearly everyone in the human race
does this) quickly fall into the belief that their own abstract world is the only world there
is, and in doing so they lose all contact with reality. An obvious example of this can be
found in politicians who lose themselves in a world of "voters", "electorates", "policies",

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"party numbers", and so on. Other examples include scientists who become absorbed in
a world of "energy", "forces", "stars", "particles", "species", "carbon cycles", etc; and
fundamentalist Christians who are obsessed with "souls", "angels", "demons", "heaven",
and the like. They all tend to forget that the abstract world they deal with on a daily basis
is simply that - an abstract world.

They are not the only ones who do this, however. The average person on the street is
guilty of it as well. He tends to lose himself in an abstract world of "self", "family",
"business", "country", "football team", "friends", "enemies", "pleasure", etc. He too falls
into the trap of thinking these things are real, even to the point where he is prepared to
fight and kill over them. It is also the reason why the average person loves to indulge in
mind-altering pursuits such as music, dancing, alcohol, drugs, sex, meditation, religious
ecstasies and the like. He is looking for temporary relief from the conceptual prison that
he normally lives in. The exhilaration that he feels when he partakes in these things is the
exhilaration of escaping all the frustrations, worries and fears which relentlessly consume
him in his abstract world.

It is part of the skill of the philosopher that he masters his powers of abstraction and
does not allow them to swamp his mind and distort his perspective. He is in complete
control of his conceptualizing mind. He is able to do this because he is not hampered by
the egotistical desire to clutch at things for his security and identity. He no longer has any
worldly purposes or goals, nor any attachment to a particular point of view, nor any
vested interest in what happens in the Universe. He is entirely free to roam around at
will, entering and leaving any abstract world he likes, never being fooled by any of it. He
has broken the back of his own existence, as it were, and now enjoys the complete
freedom of his infinite nature, a freedom that is beyond purpose.

The Essential Lie of Categories

It is said that Eskimos have forty different categories of snow, whereas we in the West
have a mere half-dozen. So who is right? Are there really forty different types of snow?
Or are there only a half-dozen? The answer is ultimately neither. If we wanted to, we
could easily break up each of the forty categories that the Eskimos have devised into lots
of smaller categories, in effect creating hundreds, or thousands, or even millions of
different types of snow. Indeed, we could conceivably break down these categories
forever and yet never reach an end. For at bottom, each of these types of snow is an
illusion, a chimera created by our categories. No two snowflakes, or snowfalls, are ever
alike. Each one is unique event, never to be repeated. The sheer lack of repetition here
dictates that the categories of snow which we create, however useful they might be in our
daily lives, ultimately refer to nothing real.

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Similarly, the fingers at the end of our hands are part of the world of abstraction and
hence an illusion. A finger is essentially an abstraction and nothing more. We might think
that we are referring to a finger when we point to the end of our hand, but in reality we
are not. What actually exists there is not a finger, but an ever-changing form that
ultimately has no identity and no boundaries. Fingers, on the other hand, are static
mental images that deviate from what is really there.

We can, of course, pick up a physical object, such as a leaf, and point to its various
features and describe their functions. But even here, we are still only referring to
abstractions. The various shadings of the leaf boil down to a handful of categories of
colours; the aerodynamic properties boil down to engineering categories; the photo-
synthetic properties boil down to chemical categories; and so on. Even when we point to
an unusual feature, an oddity which is specific to the leaf in question, we are making use
of standard categories pertaining to that particular species of leaf. It is impossible to get
around the use of categories. We use them all the time, both in speech and thought. And
it is through our categories that existence is created.

In reality, Nature is a continuous, ever-changing flow in which nothing ever really comes
into existence. Our conceptualizing minds take a hold of this flow and create frozen
images out of it, which we subsequently believe to be existing things. That our minds do
this is also part of the continuous, ever-changing flow of Nature. Our minds have no
choice but to create things in this manner. It is what it is caused to do. In this way, our
minds are part of the creative process of the Universe. It is through our minds that things
literally come into being. In a very real sense, we sit at the right hand side of God.

The Role of the Observer

Not only is the mind responsible for the frozen images that we call "things", but it is also
responsible for the way we perceive the world in any given moment. I spoke earlier about
how the contrasts between objects that we directly perceive in the world are largely
dependent upon the perspective of the observer. We now need to take this a step further
and see that the very attributes and properties which things appear to possess are also
largely determined by the observer.

Consider the point of a needle, for example. From the naked eye, it appears shiny,
smooth and sharp. Yet as soon as we place it under a microscope, the smooth, sharp
point magically disappears and a wide mountainous terrain bearing an uncanny
resemblance to the dull surface of the moon takes its place. So which appearance is the
real one? Is the needle point really smooth and sharp? Or is it really a wide mountainous
terrain?

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From our ordinary human perspective, a large mountain such as Mt Everest appears to
be a very solid and immoveable object. It almost seems timeless in its inability to change.
Yet from the perspective of an observer for whom a million years of our time flashes by
in a second, the mountain would appear to be very soft and fluid. So which is the real
mountain? Is it hard and immovable, or soft and fluid?

If we were to change the structure of the human body so that it processed and
interpreted the data streaming through its senses in a radically different way, there is little
doubt that we would perceive a vastly different world. Take the experience of colour, for
example. As we all know, each of the colours that we see in the world corresponds to a
particular frequency of light. But if our brains were wired differently so that each colour
corresponded to a different frequency of light, or if the brain decided to construct a
whole new collection of colours in place of the more familiar ones, then our world would
suddenly look very strange and different indeed.

In fact, it is conceivable that each person has his own particular colour scheme, each one
unique unto itself and bearing no resemblance to anyone else’s colour scheme.
Subjectively speaking, there are probably an infinite numbers of ways to experience, say,
the colour "red". The way I experience it probably has no resemblance to the way other
people experience it. If I could somehow be transported into another person’s
consciousness, I would probably find the colours there to be completely alien to me. I
cannot even begin to imagine, from the perspective of my own consciousness, what they
would be like.

Clearly, then, the properties displayed by an object are greatly dependent upon the
perspective adopted by the observer. If the observer’s senses were suddenly structured
differently, or if he suddenly changed his perspective, then the old familiar objects would
suddenly appear very different. While our senses and our perspective are not the sole
creators of what we perceive in the world - no one thing is ever the sole creator of
anything - they are nevertheless integral to the existence of everything that we experience.

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 - Chapter Six -

Emptiness

Many people are afraid to empty their minds lest they plunge into the Void. They do
not know that their own mind is the Void.

- Huang Po

We are perhaps now at the most interesting and crucial stage of the proceedings. The
material up until now has been fairly straightforward and I am sure that a lot of people
would be in agreement with its tenets. The rest of the analysis will test them, however.
For it is here that they will be forced to make a choice between abandoning their finite
common sense while pushing their reasoning all the way in the pursuit of ultimate truth,
and that of remaining safely ensconced in the world of mediocrity and convention. It will
separate those who have the spark of genius in them and those who do not.

This is where a strong faith in reason comes into play. Those of you who do not have
enough faith in your own minds to directly discern truth, and instead have to rely on the
beliefs of others to prop you up, will fall away here. It requires tremendous courage and
character to leave the world behind and attend to one’s personal connection to Truth.
You are all alone in this realm, with no one around to provide you with any support. It is
just you and your ability to think clearly, and that is all. Not everyone is cut out for these
lofty heights.

In this final chapter of part one, I will analyse the nature of experience itself. We have
already established the enormous role the observer plays in the existence of things. Now
we will examine the manner in which we experience anything at all, and from there we
will slowly make our way towards emptiness.

Brain Constructions

It has long been known by science that everything we perceive in the world is a
construction of the brain. The senses receive data from the outside world in the form of

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frequencies, wavelengths, energy pulses and the like. They then transform this data into
electro-chemical messages and relay them to the processing centres of the brain, which,
in turn, construct a three-dimensional world out of them using memory as a template.

Note that we never experience the "outside world" in any shape or form. The entire
scope of our experiences is confined to what the brain happens to create. The people we
love and hate, the large solid buildings in which they live, the distant mountains, the stars
and galaxies in the sky - all of them are constructions of the brain. In a very real sense,
the brain is all we ever experience.

In many ways, the construction that the brain creates is an arbitrary one. After all, there is
no real need for it to make a strictly accurate rendition of what is really "out there". Its
prime concern is merely to construct a world that best suits the practical needs of our
species. The senses themselves have primarily evolved for this purpose. For example, our
eyes can only sense a narrow range of electro-magnetic frequencies, as our species only
needs a relatively small amount of visual information in order to survive. Whereas certain
species of birds can differentiate between innumerable shades of green, which helps them
spot camouflaged prey hidden in grass, we can only differentiate between relatively few.
Our senses are structured to block out most of the information which is irrelevant to our
survival as a species and to accentuate the rest, and because of this, our senses invariably
provide us with a distorted picture of the world. It cannot be otherwise, of course. It
goes with the territory of having senses in the first place. All sentient beings suffer
sensory limitations, and distorted perceptions of the world, in one form or another.

It is natural for us to think that our visual perception, provided by our eyes, gives us an
accurate portrayal of the world. This is because vision is the strongest of our five senses.
But such thinking is generated more from habit than any sound reasoning. Consider the
plight of the small bat, for example, which has very poor eyesight and relies instead on a
process of echolocation. The bat emits high-frequency sounds which bounce off objects
and return as echoes, thus allowing the bat to create some sort of picture of the world.
Although its brain undoubtedly creates visual images from this sonic data, they are
nevertheless images constructed by hearing, rather than by seeing.

However, that is the only real difference between the bat and ourselves. Whereas it uses
sonar echoes to gain visual information about the world, we use photons of light. We
might instinctively think that the bat suffers from a meagre visual image of the world
because it "hears" it, rather than "sees" it, but nevertheless what it experiences is no less
real than what we experience. Both the photon and the sound wave are simply vehicles
of data; the images that are created in both the bat and the human are equally fake and
constructed.

We have no way of knowing how accurately the construction we experience in each

moment portrays what is "out there". It is impossible for us to reach beyond our

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consciousness and peek at what lies beyond. Granted, the construction needs to be
accurate to some degree, otherwise we would notice gaping inconsistencies in our
experiences. We would be tripping over things that we could not see and putting our
hands through solid-looking objects; things would be winking in and out of existence
willy-nilly, and so on. Given that the existence of these kinds of inconsistencies would
seriously hinder our survival as a species, it is no surprise that we rarely experience them.

However, internal consistency alone is not enough to ensure that the world we
experience has any resemblance to the world which exists beyond the mind. After all,
radar images inside a military plane are internally consistent and display enough
information for the navigator and pilot to react to circumstances. Even so, no one would
assert that these images closely resemble the objects the radar is designed to detect.
Navigators and pilots do not require accurate detailed replications on their radar screens -
if anything, such detail would only distract them. All they want is basic information such
as how fast the object is heading towards them and what distance it is at. Anything more
than this would be superfluous. Similarly, our brains are under no obligation to construct
anything other than a vastly simplified world which best serves our survival purposes.

It is important to note that the senses and the brain are themselves part of the simplified
construction in which we live. Everything that we know of the brain and senses is by way
of the construction. The constructed brain and senses are the only brains and senses that
we know of. Although we might surmise that there is a brain beyond our consciousness,
along with the five senses, photons, sound waves, and a physical world which has some
sort of resemblance to the one we experience, it can never be anything more than a
tentative inference on our parts. It could easily be the case that the construction we
experience is a computer simulation, or a virtual reality created by machinery. If that is
the case, then the view that the brain and senses are responsible for the construction
would be an illusion. Again, the only brain that we know for sure exists is the one that we
experience within consciousness.

Any conclusion that we care to reach concerning what lies beyond the construction will
be nothing more than a tentative inference, one that is created within the construction
itself. Even if we received compelling evidence that the construction is really a computer
simulation, we would still have no way of ascertaining for sure that this is what is really
happening. The computer, which is thought to be responsible for the existence of the
construction, would be in the same boat as the brain. It is something that we would only
experience within the construction itself. At bottom, it does not matter what we choose
to postulate or imagine lies beyond consciousness, it will always be nothing more than a
creation existing within consciousness.

To understand this point properly, the reader needs to make a quantum leap in his
perspective and abandon altogether the notion that there is a world "out there" beyond

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the mind. He needs to realize that any kind of world he cares to conceive of will
necessarily be part of the construction. Even the very division between what is within
consciousness and what lies beyond it is a construction of consciousness. There is
literally no "out there", apart from what we experience in our consciousness.

It may be objected that our inability to experience anything beyond the construction is
not proof that nothing is there at all. And that would be true. There is another kind of
proof, however, which does conclusively demonstrate that nothing can exist beyond the
construction, one that shows that things necessarily only exist within it. It is as follows:

A thing can only exist if it possesses a form of some kind. Whether it has the form of a
tree, or a cloud, or an ambiguous wave/particle duality, or a flowing stream, each thing
finds its existence in its form. If a thing were to lack form altogether, then it would be
incapable of existence. An existing thing without form is a contradiction in terms and
therefore a logical impossibility.

Form, in turn, can only exist by virtue of a perspective created by an observer. The form
of an object and the observer’s perspective go hand in hand. There cannot be one
without the other. Consider a leaf, for example, which presents itself to an observer as a
small, light, brown object. The form of the leaf is generated, in part at least, by the
observer’s perspective, which includes his size and the structure of his brain and senses
and so on. If we took away the observer altogether, we would also take away the form of
the leaf. Its brownish colours would disappear, along with all of its other qualities. There
would be nothing left. The leaf would be gone.

It might be argued that only the appearance of the leaf, as experienced by the observer,
would disappear and not the leaf itself. But what is a leaf if not a bundle of properties
which appear to an observer? If we took away all of those appearances, what would be
left? A small dark amorphous object? That too would be an appearance. It does not
matter what form the resulting object would have, it will always fall into the realm of
appearances. The bottom line is, as soon as you posit that a thing exists, it will necessarily
have a form of some kind and be nothing more than an appearance.

We can summarize these thoughts with the one simple assertion that existence is
appearance. To exist is to appear. In the moment that a thing is not presenting an
appearance, it does not exist.

It might be objected that there are some things in the world which do not present an
appearance, yet we still know of their existence. An example would be a black hole, an
object which does not reflect or emit light and therefore makes it impossible for us to
perceive directly. The trouble with this argument is that we do indeed perceive the
appearance of black holes - if not directly, then at least in the effects that it has on its
surrounding environment. We can perceive its gravitational pull on nearby stars and

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galaxies, for example. It also presents an appearance in the mathematical equations that
focus on its behaviour. So there is no question that black holes present an appearance.

We do not directly perceive, with the naked eye, the molecules which comprise a tree, yet
that does not mean they do not present an appearance and do not exist. As with black
holes, they present an appearance through their effects, the main one being the
appearance of the tree itself. Because science has established that all large physical
objects, such as trees, are composed of molecules, we can automatically infer that the
tree’s molecules exist simply by acknowledging the existence of the tree. And no doubt, if
we were to pull out a microscope and peer into one of its cells, we would observe the
molecules in question. But whether the molecules present an appearance directly through
the microscope, or indirectly through its effects, they are still presenting an appearance.

It is important to let go of the notion that an object has one true form and therefore one
true appearance. That is an illusion. The only true form that an object has is the form it
happens to display to an observer at any given moment. In the moment that a molecule
in a tree is perceived through a microscope, that is its form. And when it is perceived
indirectly through our concepts or inferences, then that too is its form, its new form. The
idea that the former constitutes the one true form of the molecule, while the latter is
merely a distorted version is irrational. For even when we observe a molecule through a
microscope, we only ever perceive an appearance which has been filtered and distorted
by the structure of the microscope, our senses, nervous system and brain. In the end, it is
impossible to perceive an object’s true form because it has none. There is only the form
that it displays in any given moment and that is all.

The Hidden Void

Since existence is equivalent to appearance, it naturally follows that it is impossible for

existence to occur outside the mind. Armed with this knowledge, we can now properly
examine what it is that lies beyond consciousness and creates our constructed universe in
the first place.

The first thing we can establish is that it is incapable, by its very nature, of presenting an
appearance and therefore incapable of existing and possessing form. It cannot be thought
of as a brain, or a mind, or a God, or a physical process, or a world resembling the one
we experience, or indeed anything at all. Nor can it be thought of as "pure nothingness",
for that too is ultimately an appearance. It is wholly beyond the capacity of the mind to
experience or grasp. We simply have to accept that it will always be a mystery which can
never be solved.

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This needs some qualification, however. To use the word "mystery" in this context is
ultimately incorrect. A phenomenon can only qualify as being a mystery if an explanation
or answer (one that is currently unknown to us) actually exists for it. The mystery stems
from our incapacity to know what that particular explanation is. For example, the arisal
of some forms of cancer is currently a mystery to us. It is a mystery because we have not
yet been able to map the precise causal factors which produce these forms of cancer.
While there is no doubt these causal factors exist, we simply have not yet been able to
isolate them yet.

By contrast, the question, "What does a married bachelor look like?", is not a mystery.
Even though no one has ever seen a married bachelor, or is able to imagine what he
might look like, it is not really a mystery because it is impossible for a married bachelor to
exist in the first place. It is a false mystery created out of illogical thought.

The same reasoning applies to the question of "what" is responsible for the existence of
the construction in which we live. The term "what" is wholly inapplicable in this context,
for there can be no "what" beyond the construction. Since nothing can exist at all beyond
the construction (not even nothingness itself), the question of what is really there is
meaningless and unaskable.

The actual creative agent of the construction, then, is not a brain or a computer or a
God, but a "hidden void" which is necessarily beyond the scope of consciousness to
perceive or grasp. There is nothing mystical or religious about my use of the term
"hidden void" here. I only use it to highlight the fact that the creative agent of the
construction is both beyond consciousness and completely lacking in form. Only things
within the construction are capable of possessing form and being experienced. The
hidden void is capable of neither.

In the final analysis, there are only two things we can know about the hidden void for
sure - namely, (a) that it is not nothingness and (b) that it possesses the capacity to create
the construction in which we live. To know anything more than this is impossible - for
anyone or anything. Not even the hidden void itself can know anything more about it.
For there is literally nothing more to know. As such, our understanding of what lies
beyond consciousness is now complete.

Examining the Construction

Let us return now to the construction in which we live. It is important to avoid the trap
of thinking that the construction, and everything within it, is merely an appearance, while
the "hidden void" constitutes ultimate reality. Such a duality is unnecessary and lacks any
fundamental basis. The hidden void and the construction are simply two manifestations

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of the one Reality. Everything within the construction is as real as the hidden void. The
only difference between the two is that the hidden void is an aspect of Reality which is
incapable of being experienced.

The objects that we perceive within the construction are not mere replications or
simulations of "real objects" that exist beyond the mind. There are no objects beyond the
mind. An object can only find its existence within the construction itself or not at all. In
the very moment of our perception of it is the only time it exists. And in that very
moment, it is nothing less than a real object.

At the same time, we need to remember that although the objects we perceive in any
given moment are real objects, they nevertheless lack an objective or inherent form of
existence. They do not have a fixed form which we can grasp in the belief we have
apprehended their true nature. Their existence and form is exactly what it appears to be
in any given moment and that is it.

Likewise, the observable universe as a whole, the entirety of the construction, also has no
fixed form or true nature. It too is simply what it appears to be in any given moment.
Consider the age of the universe, for example. Scientists currently hold the belief that the
observable universe is 15 billion years old. It is a belief that has been generated by various
pieces of empirical evidence from a wide range of disciplines, such as cosmology,
astronomy, chemistry, geology, and quantum physics. As things stand, it seems to be a
fairly well-established theory.

However, we have no way of checking whether the figure of 15 billion years is actually
accurate or not. The evidence that we rely on is purely circumstantial in nature and we
have no way of establishing its validity in an absolute sense. It could well be that the
universe is only 200 years old, with the empirical evidence supporting the 15 billion year
figure being planted by a devious agent of some kind in order to create a false
impression. Who knows? It is probably very unlikely, and I have no reason to believe it,
but nonetheless it cannot be entirely ruled out. It is not an impossibility.

That the universe seems to be 15 billion years old is simply an appearance to us. It is
undoubtedly a compelling appearance, given the evidence currently available to us, but it
is still an appearance nonetheless. And that is what it will always be.

New evidence might suddenly turn up tomorrow which will seem to convincingly
demonstrate that the observable universe is only a six month old computer simulation
and that our memories of our lives before then have merely been programmed into it. If
that were to happen, then all of the old evidence which had been produced by
cosmology, astronomy, geology and so on, to support a 15 billion year old universe
would be rendered worthless. Our picture of the universe would change radically. But
note, even this new picture would only ever constitute an appearance, one that we could

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never be certain about. We would be no more certain of the new appearance than we are
of the current one.

The idea that the observable universe has a true or objective age is meaningless. For
whatever age it could possibly have will always fall into the realm of appearances. The
same reasoning applies to the observable universe itself. It is meaningless to think of the
universe unfolding in a real or objective manner, for again, any kind of unfolding that we
care to perceive or imagine will always fall into the realm of appearances. There is no real
or objective universe. There is only an appearance of the universe, a construction of
consciousness in the here and now, one that is capable of changing quite radically from
one moment to the next.

Once again, it should always be kept in mind that I am using the word "appearance"
advisedly here. Since neither the hidden void, nor anything within the observable
universe, can lay sole claim to ultimate reality, the word "appearance" is not really
applicable here. The universe that appears to us in any given moment is in fact the real
universe. There is no other one.

Is there no difference, then, between a person who is lost in an hallucinatory universe in

his own mind and the average person on the street who perceives the physical universe
normally? Not really, it is only a matter of degree. A schizophrenic, for example,
sometimes talks to people who exist purely in his mind in the belief that he is talking to
real people. From his point of view, he is talking to real people, but from our point of
view, he is hallucinating. But in the end, we have no way of establishing for sure that we
are not hallucinating ourselves. Like the schizophrenic, we can only accept what we
perceive in each moment at face value and assume, until evidence arises to the contrary,
that it is real. This contrary evidence might come along or it might not. Either way, it is
impossible for us determine that the world we experience in each moment is not an
hallucination.

This is not really a problem for the enlightened person, I might add. The beauty of
becoming enlightened is that one transcends the realm of appearances and all of its
associated uncertainties. One no longer projects ultimate reality onto any particular
appearance and thus one no longer has a personal stake in any one of them being real. So
it does not really matter to the enlightened person if the perceived world is an
hallucination or not. He sees that, either way, each appearance will always be nothing
more than a momentary manifestation of Reality and have no other reality beyond that.

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Before Consciousness

A natural question to ask at this point is what existed in the Universe before
consciousness came into being. If we accept the standard scientific view, the first signs of
life appeared around 4.5 billion years ago and rudimentary forms of consciousness
perhaps a billion years after that. If, as I maintain, existence can only occur within
consciousness, then it follows that nothing could have existed before consciousness
evolved. How can that be so? What about the Big Bang which supposedly happened 15
billions years ago and presumably did not have the benefit of someone watching it? Am I
saying that the Big Bang never occurred?

Again, although these questions are perfectly natural to ask, they are nevertheless
fundamentally deluded and unaskable. For they are created out of a false understanding
of my views. It is meaningless to speak of what occurred before the evolution of
consciousness because, as I pointed out earlier, the very use of the word "what" is
inapplicable outside of consciousness. Even the notions "before consciousness" or
"outside consciousness" are meaningless.

As with anything else, the Big Bang can never be anything more than an appearance to an
observer. If we could somehow build a time machine and travel back 15 billion years,
there is little doubt that we would observe a Big Bang in action. However, it would still
be a Big Bang exploding within our own consciousness and nowhere else. It would still
only be an appearance. The idea of a Big Bang-in-itself, outside of anyone’s perception, is
groundless.

Note that I am not rejecting Big Bang theory because I favour an alternative
cosmological theory or because I believe there was a state of absolute nothingness. I am
not really engaging in a cosmological debate here at all. Rather, I am focusing on
something far more profound. Alternative cosmological processes, together with the
state of absolute nothingness, are like the Big Bang in that they can never be anything
more than an appearance and hence cannot make any more claim to validity than the
appearance of the Big Bang can. The bottom line is, we cannot even begin to think or
speak about what occurred before the existence of consciousness because the very notion
of "something occurring" is meaningless in this context.

As with any other scientific issue, all we can do is allow the empirical evidence to guide
us and create what we think is a plausible theory about the observable universe’s origins.
This is a perfectly natural and worthwhile activity to engage in. But while we are doing
this, we should never forget that whatever theory we care to create will only ever apply to
appearances within consciousness. Any attempt to stretch their significance beyond this
would be short-sighted and irrational.

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So how did consciousness initially spring into being if there was ultimately no Big Bang,
no alternative cosmological process and no nothingness? The short answer is, I have no
idea. Nor does anyone else have a clue. The question is utterly beyond the capacity of the
human mind to solve. As mentioned previously, there are only two things that we can
know for sure about the "hidden void" - namely, (a) that it does not have any form and is
therefore wholly unlike anything we can ever experience, and (b) that it possesses the
capacity to generate consciousness and existence. Nothing else can ever be known about
it.

Other People’s Consciousnesses

Having established that everything exists within the construction created by

consciousness, I will now briefly address the issue of other people’s consciousnesses.
Needless to say, the constructed universe in which I live is something that I experience
within my own consciousness and nowhere else. I do not live in other constructed
universes in other people’s consciousnesses. Each person’s constructed universe is
unique and isolated from everyone else’s.

I do not really know, of course, if these other constructed universes actually exist. It
could well be they are an illusion created within my own consciousness. Other people
certainly appear to be conscious, but I have no way of establishing that they really are.
After all, they could be like the people that I meet in my dreams at night. Dream people
can walk and talk and perform complex tasks and do anything that "real life" people can
do, even though they are nothing more than unconscious automatons directed by my
dreaming mind. Perhaps a similar situation occurs in my wakeful life? Perhaps everyone I
meet is an unconscious automaton? It is impossible to judge. I will never be able to reach
a final conclusion about this because any evidence I might wish to call upon to decide the
matter, one way or the other, will always be part of my own construction and therefore
will always be fundamentally unreliable.

Since it is essentially an unsolvable problem, the only rational course of action is treat it
as though it were any other empirical issue - namely, treat the evidence supporting the
existence of other people’s consciousness at face value and make the provisional
assumption that they are indeed conscious. I can reason that because other people look
and behave like me, and because I already know that I am conscious, I can conclude that
they are conscious as well. The evidence, circumstantial though it may be, generally seems
to support this point of view. Although I am uncertain about it, I am happy enough to
accept it for the time being, at least until compelling new evidence comes along and
forces me to have a rethink.

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When I speak of "the construction", then, I am referring to the totality of all
constructions and not just my own. Things can certainly exist beyond my own
consciousness, but only if there are other consciousnesses to support their existence.
When I die and my own construction vanishes, the observable universe will live on in the
minds of others. And should the human race and all conscious life on earth become
extinct, well then, existence will have to wait until new sentient beings evolve - keeping in
mind, of course, that concepts such as "waiting" and "time elapsing" and "existence" and
"nothingness" have no meaning outside of consciousness.

At the moment, there are nearly six billion people on this planet, each of them existing
inside their own construction. We can think of these constructions as separate
dimensions, all happily coexisting side by side, with no interaction between them. The
universe is like a multitude of bubbles, each bubble an isolated construction of
consciousness, each somehow making room for the rest. It is an interesting picture of the
Universe, but is it really true? Or is it simply a construct of my own consciousness, one
that lacks any kind of objective reality? I will let the reader decide that one for himself.

Another Look at the Totality

It should be clear from the analysis I have presented that the concept of the Totality does
not really refer to the three-dimensional physical universe imagined by most people to
objectively exist. Rather, it refers to the totality of all appearances experienced by
consciousness. Included in this larger totality is indeed the three-dimensional physical
universe, but it is only one of countless other appearances. There is not a single
appearance which can lay claim to being ultimate or objective reality. Whether it be an
appearance of the physical universe itself, or an appearance of an inner mystical realm,
each appearance exists only in the moment of our perceiving it and nowhere else. As
soon as it ceases being perceived, it ceases to exist. Each appearance is but a charade of
the moment and none of them ever reflect the true nature of Reality.

The Totality, then, is entirely formless. Or if you like, its form embraces the infinity of
appearances. Or even more accurately, its form is whatever happens to be perceived in
any given moment. In the moment that I conclude that the Totality is formless, or the
infinity of appearances, it too is nothing more than a momentary perception on my part.
To project anything more onto this perception, or to cling to it as though it were the final
truth, would be to fall into delusion. In the end, the Totality is simply what it is in any
given moment - end of story.

We can now go a step further and affirm that objective reality does indeed exist - in the
moment of our perception of it. If, in any given moment, the observable universe
appears to be objectively real, then that is exactly what it is. And if in the next moment, it

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no longer appears to be objectively real, then that too is exactly what it is. The observable
universe is entirely a product of the moment and lacks any kind of form or existence
outside of this.

The same is true of what is "out there" beyond the mind, and indeed of the mind itself.
Both the mind and what lies beyond the mind are only real to the degree that they exist
as an appearance. Understanding this point is important because it enables one to
transcend to an even higher perspective, taking one beyond consciousness, as it were, to
the very threshold of enlightenment itself. One is now but a finger snap away from
opening the wisdom eye and seeing directly into the secret of creation.

Another look at Causation and Logical Truth

Given the fact that everything is an appearance of the moment, it follows that any causal
process we happen to observe in the universe will also be an appearance of the moment.
For example, a match being struck to produce fire creates the appearance that the
striking of the match is the cause of the fire. Whether it really is the cause of the fire is
meaningless from the ultimate perspective. Just as the universe as a whole has no
objective reality beyond the realm of appearances, neither do causal chains.

Philosophically speaking, it makes no difference whether the fire is caused by a struck

match or by something else. All we need to know is that it does have causes. Although
we may not be able to trace its causes in any absolute sense, we can still reason that the
fire lacks inherent existence and always derives its being from what is external to it. We
can be sure of this by observing that it is logically impossible for anything to exist
independently and without cause. In other words, we can observe that it is logically true
that everything is caused.

It might be argued that if everything is an appearance of the moment and therefore

uncertain, then logical truths must also be appearances and therefore uncertain. This is
not quite true, however. The mere fact that a logical truth exists as an appearance has no
bearing on the validity of its content. Its existence as a concept might be nothing more
than an appearance of the moment, but the truth contained within it is timeless
nonetheless.

For example, consider the logical truth that all things are finite, which was explored in an
earlier chapter ("Entering the Logical Realm"). If a person reasons that everything in the
Universe must necessarily be finite, then in the moment that he is reaching this
conclusion it is absolutely and universally true. It makes no difference that the conclusion
is merely a momentary appearance in his mind. It still remains a truth which necessarily
applies to all possible worlds and therefore to all possible appearances. So even though

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the reasoner only experiences its truth momentarily, he is nevertheless able to see in that
very moment that it cannot be falsified anywhere in the Universe. He has grasped a
universal truth in a momentary flash of insight.

It should also be noted that the conclusion that "everything is an appearance", as

articulated in this chapter, is built upon a whole series of truths which ultimately rest on
the core truth that all things are finite and caused. As such, both the conclusion and the
core truth live and die together. One cannot use a logical conclusion to falsify one of its
own premises, at least not without falsifying the conclusion itself. Thus, to the degree
that "everything is an appearance" is correct, to that very same degree "all things are
finite and caused" is also correct, and vice versa.

Logical truths and logical falsehoods are distinct entities which come into being when the
causal circumstances are ripe. Although they are both appearances, they are as different
to one another as rocks are to the emotions or smell is to hearing. When people reason
correctly, they experience the appearance of logical truths, and when they do not reason
correctly, they experience falsehoods instead. It is as simple as that.

This relates to the more general point that while both the enlightened sage and the
ordinary person exist purely in the realm of appearances, they do not experience the
same kind of world. The former lives in a realm of truthful appearances, as it were, while
the other one does not. Because the sage has eliminated all delusion from his mind and
sees things truly, the appearances that he experiences are stripped of all the hallucinations
and distortions that ordinary people project onto their experiences.

Take the perception of objective reality, for example. Both the sage and the ordinary
person might, in a given moment, experience the appearance that the physical world is
objectively real. But whereas the sage automatically realizes that it is nothing more than
an appearance of the moment and can see that it has fundamentally nothing to do with
Ultimate Reality, the ordinary person invariably loses his mind to the appearance and
thereby becomes trapped in an illusion. Once this happens, a whole series of further
delusions are triggered. Fears and anxieties begin to arise from his belief that the things
contained within the illusion are real and potentially pose a threat. This then motivates
him to want to devise a whole host of physical and mental strategies in order to deal with
these threats. And thus, before you know it, he is fully absorbed in the task of building
elaborate mental fortresses in which to hide and whatever connection he previously had
to the sage’s existence has well and truly been severed.

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Sinking Back into this World

The attentive reader will note that we have almost come full circle in our investigation,
where things that were initially negated are reaffirmed once more. There is a famous
story in Zen which goes something like this:

When I was a student starting out on the path, I saw that trees were trees and
mountains were mountains. After a little while, I began to see that trees weren’t
really trees and mountains weren’t really mountains. But now that I have reached the
end of the path, I see that trees are indeed trees and mountains are indeed mountains.

Although, on the surface, it might seem that the student in this story made no progress at
all and simply went back to his original position, in reality his vision has been radically
altered. The trees and mountains which he sees at the end of his quest, and which he
affirms to be real, are vastly different to the trees and mountains that ordinary people see.
They are trees and mountains stripped of all the false assumptions and beliefs that
ordinary people habitually project onto them. The enlightened person affirms their reality
in the light of what is ultimately real and sees directly into their nature, which is light
years away from ordinary perception.

One of the major differences between the enlightened sage and the ordinary person is
that the sage no longer surrounds himself with a plethora of useless abstractions and
therefore no longer exists in a state of confusion. Because these unnecessary abstractions
have vanished, he is able to experience God without any effort at all. He no longer has to
take any mental steps in order to bring God into consciousness, for already sees God in
everything that he experiences. His mind has become infinitely simple, like an uncarved
block, no longer needing to engage in the intellectual complexities that are involved in
piercing delusion. In a very real sense, he has gone beyond the intellect and rests
effortlessly in his true nature.

He does not give up intellectualizing entirely, though. Even though he no longer has a
use for it as far as own understanding is concerned, he still employs it in the task of trying
to help others become enlightened. And since the first step towards enlightenment
always involves the intellectual process of dismantling delusion, the sage, in his helping of
others, often gives the appearance of being an intellectual. This, however, is an illusion.

As Chuang Tzu stated so beautifully:

Sages ramble in the vacancy of untroubled ease, find their food in the fields of
indifference, and stand in the gardens which they had not borrowed.

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Just as Nature Herself is as aimless as the breeze which sweeps through the trees on a hot
summer’s day, the sage flows along without any fundamental concerns or purpose. And
yet, paradoxically, he is always very purposeful in his behaviour. Being purposeful is
natural for free humans with conscious minds, and thus, in the uninhibited flow of his
fundamental aimlessness, the sage has no reason to avoid having a purpose. He no longer
experiences the kinds of attachments and fears which inhibit being purposeful. He is
entirely free to focus his mind on shaping the future.

The ordinary person is just as much steeped in the fundamental aimlessness of Nature as
the enlightened sage is, as are animals and trees. Yet that does not stop them from
behaving with purpose. But whereas the ordinary person tailors his purposes around his
attachment to self-existence, the sage tailors them around the promotion of wisdom. The
many long years that he has spent striving to become wise have instilled in him a natural
propensity to value wisdom. He does not value it egotistically or emotionally, of course,
and he ultimately does not care whether he succeeds or fails in the task of promoting
wisdom, but nonetheless his whole being is structured around this very purpose. It is as
natural for him to value wisdom as it is for birds to value the search for prey, and for
trees to value the presence of sunlight. He can no more stop valuing wisdom than he can
undo all the spiritual progress he has made. It is now part of his nature.

Conclusion to Part One

The reader who has come this far, and has thoroughly understood each step of the
analysis along the way, is now in a position to make his own personal breakthrough into
ultimate understanding. Unfortunately, I cannot help the reader take this final step. It is
something he has to do on his own. He has, courtesy of these chapters, all the material he
needs at his fingertips. The next step is for him to meditate on it, push the logical
implications of it as far as they can go, and make the final connections in his own mind
that will lead to his enlightenment.

Although I cannot help anyone take this last step, what I can do is point out some of the
common pitfalls that the student is likely to encounter at this stage. This will help him
avoid going down blind alleys and keep his mind pointed in the right direction.

Perhaps the most common pitfall is falling into the trap of mistaking a momentary
appearance for the Ultimate Truth. For example, a person might reason his way to the
point where he intellectually understands the formlessness of the Totality and the
emptiness of all things, but nevertheless fails to realize that his understanding and mental
picture of these truths is also nothing more than a momentary appearance and ultimately
empty as well.

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A sure sign this is occurring is when a person experiences doubts or conflicts in his
understanding of emptiness. The mental picture of emptiness that he has mistakenly
affirmed as constituting the ultimate truth in one moment suddenly seems to conflict with
the sheer reality of the physical world that he experiences in the next. In his mind, two
competing ultimate realities have been created and he cannot reconcile them. And since,
understandably, he finds it difficult to doubt the reality of the physical world, he ends up
doubting the reality of emptiness.

What has happened here is that he has lost sight of the fact that neither appearance is
ultimately real. He has forgotten that Reality is entirely formless and cannot be captured
by mental pictures at all. In other words, he has been taken in by an illusion.

When it comes to comprehending Reality, there is ultimately nothing to affirm or deny.

To affirm something is to fall into the delusion that a particular appearance is ultimate
reality; to deny a particular appearance is to fall into the delusion that Reality has a
particular form. Thus, part of the process of becoming enlightened is learning how to put
an end to this mentality of affirmation and denial, which means recognizing and
accepting that Reality is essentially ungraspable. Reality is simply what it is in any given
moment. It cannot be captured or got hold of in any way. The moment you try to do
that, you lose it. All that you will be left with is a useless frozen image, a kind of mental
corpse, completely oblivious to the fact that Reality has since moved on.

The path to enlightenment is simply one of halting deluded mental habits. Because
Reality is the totality of all there is, we are already fully immersed in it. So there is no
"place" in particular where we have to go, either physically or mentally, in order to
experience it. All that needs to be done is to halt the habitual projection of false
assumptions upon what is experienced. And as I have argued throughout these chapters,
this can really only be done by intellectually understanding the formlessness of Reality
and the emptiness of all things.

The better your understanding of formlessness and emptiness is, the fewer deluded
mental habits you will have, and vice versa. The two always go together. It is by
constantly deepening one’s understanding of Reality that allows one to shed one’s
deluded habits of thought.

Another common pitfall, which is related to the one just described, is the mistaken belief
that the physical world is a dream of some sort, a kind of insubstantial realm which pales
into significance against a higher reality. This too involves the delusion of mistaking an
appearance for Ultimate Reality. Although there are some similarities between wakeful
life and the dream state, the two cannot be equated. The differences between them in
terms of order, continuity and solidness are too large to ignore. Sometimes, the
enlightened sage might say, for the purposes of illustrating the point that everything is an

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illusion of the moment, that the physical world is like a dream, but this is a long way short
of saying that it is a dream.

Objects are never anything other than what they appear to be. When I perceive a chair,
for example, the sheer physicalness of the chair is very real, even though it remains true
that it is only an appearance. The chair does not present the appearance of being
insubstantial or non-physical, so we should not pretend that it does. Trying to somehow
change our perception of it so that it resembles a dream-like object is unnecessary and
constitutes a form of madness. Everything about the chair speaks loud and clear that it is
a solid three-dimensional object and we have no choice but to accept the reality of this.
Even though the chair is nothing more than an illusion of the moment, it doesn’t change
the fact that during the time it is being perceived its physicalness is very real.

Another potential pitfall is the belief that enlightenment involves a mystical experience of
some kind. Even though I often use the word "God", it should not be thought that I am
talking about a religious or mystical entity. To me, God simply means Ultimate Reality.
Apart from the fact that Ultimate Reality is timeless and responsible for the existence of
all things, it has no religious or mystical connotations at all. Quite the contrary, it is
completely natural and down-to-earth. It is as down-to-earth as the very earth itself. As
such, people with a religious inclination will find little comfort or inspiration in my
words.

The sheer formlessness of Reality dictates that there is no God at all - personal, or
mystical, or otherwise. Any God that is perceived to exist, either inwardly or out in the
physical world, will always remain in the realm of appearances, and thus will never be
anything more than an illusion of the moment. The same is true of the mystical
experience itself.

If the reader wants to comprehend the nature of Reality, then he has to abandon the
belief that it can captured by any particular appearance. Even if a particular appearance
seems profoundly spiritual, it still needs to be abandoned. "Neti, neti, .....", as some of the
wiser Hindus used to say - not this, not this. Reality cannot be straightjacketed in any
way. Any attempt to straightjacket it, in whatever conceptual framework, religious or
otherwise, indicates a gross misunderstanding of its nature. Reality is not a spiritual,
physical, or mentalistic entity. It is beyond all these things. It has no nature.

Another potential pitfall is the experience of anxiety and fear which can afflict those who
are close to being enlightened, and which can sometimes be quite paralyzing. A common
example is the fear that one is about to lose one’s mind to a kind of void and that, if one
goes any further into it, the possibility of returning to normal consciousness could
disappear.

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This is a fear which is created partly created by delusion and partly by the reality of the
situation. As far as the latter is concerned, if the person approaching enlightenment still
has a fairly strong attachment to the everyday world of ignorance, then fear can arise
when he recognizes that his mentality is beginning to permanently change and he may
never be able to go back. This is a perfectly natural reaction, which is probably best
treated by slowing down one’s intellectual development towards enlightenment and
attending instead to the attachment that one still has for the deluded life. Perhaps he
needs to step back into the world of ignorance for a while and investigate what he still
finds so attractive about it. Then, at a later date, when he believes he is less attached to
things, he can make another run for enlightenment.

Fear can also arise from a deluded understanding of Reality. If a person reasons his way
to a point where he has a good, but not perfect, understanding of formlessness and
emptiness, he can easily misinterpret it to be a kind of empty void. Again, this is just
another case of mistaking a particular appearance for ultimate reality. He has wrongly
associated voidness or nothingness with Truth and thus falls into the trap of thinking
that if he goes any further he will lose his mind. In the end, this is something which can
only be overcome by perfecting one’s intellectual understanding.

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